


That's What I'm Afraid Of

by castironbaku



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: AU where Hide and Touka (not Kaneki) are BROS, Baker!Kaneki, Hide playing it safe is cool too, M/M, Ouch, Yoshimura the Head Baker, hidekane, kanehide - Freeform, past Hide/Touka, past Yamori/Kaneki, past shuuneki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-04-01 02:59:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 71,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4003282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castironbaku/pseuds/castironbaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaneki is that one guy in the club with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. A twisted grin, a manic gleam in his eyes, and to top it all off—a talent at seduction. But Kaneki’s got something of a… reputation. When Hide, newbie at the bar and present at his childhood friend Touka’s request, comes face-to-face with Kaneki, what will he do with this inexplicable attraction he feels toward this most dangerous, most alluring, most disturbed of… bakery shop owners?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Getting There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What started out as a simple, fluffy yet angsty songfic for “Can We Dance” by the Vamps got blown out of proportion when “Don’t Trust Me” by 3OH!3 came on the radio last week. That’s basically this fic.  
> Warning: Hide will remind you of the old Kaneki. For reasons. He's a nerd ok. They were both in nerd school, Hide was a nerd. He is one, so there.

“Ugh, for the _last_ time, Touka, I am _not_ going to get drunk for you.” Hide threw a bunch of plastic bananas at her, which she lithely ducked to avoid. She straightened with a challenge in her eyes. A challenge that Hide was most definitely not childish enough to fall for. Damn karate kid. He shook his head and returned to painting the banana tree the Kamii Arts department was too lazy and short-handed to paint themselves.

 

“I’m not asking you to get drunk for _me_ ,” Touka said as she bent down to pick up the bananas. “It’s for _you_ , stupid. You’re such a little goody-two-shoes it’s getting on my nerves. You’ve never gotten drunk. Not even once. Watching you makes me sad.”

 

“Getting drunk isn’t one of my life goals, Touka,” Hide tried for a warning tone.

 

“Apparently, neither is rule-breaking, poor wittle Hide baby.”

 

“I’ve broken rules!” he retorted lamely. “Just… not… big ones… I guess.” Touka stared at him, unimpressed. He threw his hands up in the air, splattering his head and shoulders in green paint. He cursed and scowled at her. “Okay, so I’m not a daredevil like you, Little Miss I’m Still In High School But I Know What Getting Wasted Is Like—”

 

Touka rolled her eyes, tossing the bananas up and down. “Hide, _everyone_ in high school knows what getting wasted is like,” she said pointedly. “You’re just a 90’s kid pretending he was born in the 20’s or something.”

 

He ignored her. “—but at least I’m in a good college on a _scholarship_ and I’ve got a pretty decent future on hand,” he finished with a “so there” kind of look before turning back to his banana tree.

 

Touka made a gagging noise. “Please stop making me embarrassed to be your ex.”

 

Hide spun around, flushed red to the roots of his colored hair. “Holy _shit_ , Touka,” he hissed. “I—We weren’t—That wasn’t—”

 

It really hadn’t been anything. He’d known Touka since… since _forever_. There was just that one time. They had been fourteen and fifteen respectively. They’d been alone. They’d been curious. It had just been a kiss. And just a little bit more than that, but it hadn’t been a home run. Mostly because Hide didn’t know where to put his hands. They were both well past that stage now and although Hide was still very much a virgin, Touka had already gone into that unknown realm of “already done it’s” and “is that all you can do’s.” Well, maybe not _that_ far in, but she was most definitely _not_ blissfully naïve of the where-to’s and the what-how’s of the bedroom.

 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said, smirking at his discomfiture. “So are we on for tonight?” She was still playing with the bananas he’d lobbed at her. He knew what kind of image she was going for and, well, it was working. In the “just-please- _please_ -get-her-off-my-case” kind of way.

 

He clutched his paintbrush and turned his back to her. She’d never let him live it down if she saw the look on his face now. “ _Fine_ ,” he ground out. “But on one condition.”

 

“Ugh,” she said, slapping a hand to her forehead. “I knew it.”

 

Hide regarded her with a droll look. “Just hear me out and you can drag me to whatever club you want to drag me to,” he said, holding up his paintbrush. “But just for your information, I’m not drinking more than one.”

 

Touka wiggled her eyebrows. “One what? Shot? Glass? Bottle? You have to be clearer, you know.”

 

He groaned again. “You know what I mean, Touka.”

 

“Got it, Cap,” she said, openly grinning now. She tossed the bananas back to him, thoroughly satisfied with her victory three weeks in the making. “Pick me up at eight.” And then she was off, sprinting down the length of the Kamii University Arts theater until she was out the door on the far end. Hide let his shoulders slump as he watched her go, relieved.

 

“Yo, Hide.” One of the other Arts department doormats put an arm around Hide’s shoulder. “That your girl?”

 

Hide laughed and shrugged the guy off. “Yeah, right,” he said. “She’s a friend.”

 

The guy whistled. “Wish I got five yen for every time I hear _that_ one. Really, dude, that chick’s _hot_.”

 

“She’s outta your league, then,” Hide teased. It was really hard not to tell the guy to just leave. Touka was something of a little sister figure to Hide now. That sort of thing made you a bit protective, if not overly so.

 

“That’s foul, man. That’s foul. Still, I heard you two’re going clubbing tonight. Feels like _something_ ’s gonna go down.”

 

  Hide managed not to cringe at the idea of clubs and bars and drugs and _alcohol_. Ugh, he hated that liquified shit. It was all he could do not to throw up at the very thought of it. Nishio had called it a psychological aversion, or some effect of the trauma he’d had when he was a kid, having to see his dad down bottle after bottle and then taking it out on him and his mom. Hide just liked to keep things simple and called it an “allergy.” A really, really bad allergy. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

 

Oh yeah. Things were gonna go down alright. Just not the way this idiot thought it would.

 

* * *

 

The club was called “Ghoul 20.” Hide could barely mask his frustration and extreme reluctance. Mostly because Touka was _literally_ dragging him by his collar into the place. When they were within two meters of the bouncer keeping people out and letting other people in, Hide had had enough of being pulled around against his will. He dug his heels into the sidewalk and wrenched himself out of Touka’s mega-strong grip. But only just.

 

Touka skidded to a stop when she felt him escape her grasp. She spun around to glare at Hide as he straightened his T-shirt and jacket with a scowl of his own. “Touka, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times,” he said like he was proclaiming holy scripture, “you don’t manhandle friends. Especially not childhood friends.”

 

She snorted. “You _so_ weren’t going to get out of the car if I didn’t. Admit it.”

 

“I’m not here because I want to be,” he reminded her. “But I’m nothing if not a man of my word”—Touka snorted yet again at this—“Hey! I’m serious! I’m going in with you, I swear! Just… Just don’t make me look so pathetic, okay?” he added in a quiet grumble. Yes, a college student being dragged into a club by a high school girl was nothing if not pathetic.

 

If they hadn’t been joined at the hip since they were, like, five, maybe Touka would’ve just stuck her nose up and abandoned him right there because Hide could tell that she was sorely tempted to right now. But he knew—and this gave him some much-needed leverage against possible desertions or beatings—that she needed him tonight. On the drive to Ghoul 20, Hide had more or less gotten an idea of what Touka needed him so badly for.

 

“Yeesh, Touka, if you want to talk to a guy, you could just do it without me,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “What happened to all the ‘no guts, no glory’ attitude?”

 

In less than a second, she was in his face, stabbing a finger into his chest. “Shut up, Hide,” she hissed. “Just shut the fuck up.” Her flipped switch was all Hide needed to confirm his suspicions. He raised an eyebrow. A guy, huh. And an incredible one at that, if he could get Touka to freak like this. “It’s not what you think it is,” she snapped, reading his expression in an instant. “I do _not_ want to fuck this guy, okay? He’s just…” She reached up and grabbed Hide by the collar again, tugging him down so that she could speak directly into his ear. “Look,” she said, voice low, “they say he’s got connections to this really exclusive club so—”

 

“So you want me to help you kiss ass,” Hide deadpanned.

 

“That’s basically it, yeah,” she said, releasing him so that he could readjust his clothes again.

 

“But why me? I mean, I don’t really need to be the guy you bring with you here, right?”

 

Touka narrowed her eyes at him. “Stop with the mind games, you know why I want you here, Little Mister Watching People Is My Hobby.”

 

“It’s a very respectable hobby, I’ll have you know,” he told her, only half-serious.

 

She began to knead her temples as if _Hide_ were the source of stress around here. “I just want a quick profile on the guy, alright? Like, where the line is and stuff. Where is just okay and where is just clusterfuck. You’ll only be here just this once. I won’t make you do this again. Probably,” she added.

 

Hide pretended to mull it over, but in all honesty he’d already made up his mind. Whoever was capable of intimidating or, God forbid, mystifying Touka Kirishima was definitely a kind of human he’d never observed before. If there was anything Hide was good at besides school and, to a limited extent, football, it was really just human observation, data gathering and correlation. Mostly he liked to watch people and file away his gathered data on them for future reference. Because he’d been doing it for years, he’d grown adept at reading people, dealing with them, and finding out lots of things that he normally wouldn’t have. Well, _almost_ everyone. He still couldn’t really fend for himself against Touka. Maybe it was because he’d known her since well before he’d started his creepy stalker hobby.

 

“So…” Touka said tentatively. “Are you in or not?”

 

“You’re seriously asking me that after making me drive you all the way out here?” Hide grinned. For some reason, he was feeling a lot more pumped about this than he probably should have been. “So, what’s the big guy’s name?”

 

Touka huffed, turning toward the entrance leading into Ghoul 20 with an inscrutable look in her eye. “Before I tell you, you should know that he’s known for… a bunch of things.”

 

“Like what? Does he deal weed, or is he, like, a secret mafia boss or something?” Hide joked.

 

Her glare was harsh enough to bring him down a couple notches. Then to his surprise, her expression softened into a flat line. “I guess you’ll have to see it for yourself then,” she said, pausing a little, perhaps for effect. “His name is Kaneki. Ken Kaneki. And he’s a little… intense.”

 

“We both know I can’t back down from a challenge if you put it that way.” Hide flashed her what he considered a reassuring smile. He pointed a thumb at the door. “Shall we go?”

 

When his childhood friend nodded in acquiescence, they set off for the entrance where, of course, she was able to get them through with ease. Hide wasn’t entirely sure how she’d done it (and he still wouldn’t be for a long time after that), but after years of sticking with her, he’d long since learned to just go with the flow. Touka knew how to do things he couldn’t and he knew how to do things she couldn’t. They helped each other out. Most of the time. That was what friends did for friends.

 

Thing was, Hide didn’t really understand what Touka meant when she’d said “intense.” His base definition of the word was legit just Touka on a bad day or Nishio on a _really_ bad day. He didn’t exactly think his scope of it was really limited either. He’d had a pretty “intense” childhood. He had an “intense” best friend. He dealt with “intense” workloads at home everyday because he was in some really “intense” advanced classes. He was, for a few seconds before meeting Ken Kaneki himself, blissfully ignorant of the possibility that the man might be a drunk psycho and of the very meaning of what Touka had meant when she’d said “intense.”

 

Because as luck might have had it, Hide learned the real meaning of the word that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you guys didn’t notice, this fic is a horrible rip-off of a certain godly fanfic on this site. If you figure it out, please don’t judge me—I honestly didn’t realize it myself until I was halfway through this chapter haha~  
> This first chapter was meant to be really short because I’m mostly just experimenting on my style with this and wasn't sure how I came off. Hope you were okay with it though?  
> See you next chappie~


	2. Meeting the Guy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKS: Huge, huge, huge THANK YOU to everybody who liked the first chapter! It was only a prologue with like 2k words but all that in three days? You serious? Wow. WOW. Thank you so much. You guys are awesome. HideKane is awesome. Yes. Also, because of the huge (to me, anyway) reception, I decided to dig my heels in and do some balls-out research on Tokyo nightlife. I also pooped out this chapter earlier than expected because ILYSM~  
> NEWS: I changed the club’s name ok? Please consider Ghoul 20 (bc 20th ward woot) as a real, multi-level, foreigner-catering club establishment in Roppongi just for this fic.  
> APOLOGY: Someone predicted something much worse (and much awesomer) for this “intense” night. Sorry, bros, Hide doesn’t get raped (*hisses “yeeeeeeet”*). First there’s Shuuneki. There must be some Shuuneki first, unfortunately. … Guys? Where’d you go??  
> And okay, Hide’s a Japanese nerd, so of course he watched SnK. Of course he did.

When Touka stopped mid-stride about ten steps in, Hide entertained the fantasy that maybe she was actually rethinking her life choices. Maybe this was the moment she realized that, “Oh, yeah, I’m still a seventeen year old girl with tons of potential. I should go home and hit the books, think about college like it’s an actual _thing_ and not a vague idea.” They were still at the ground floor, where a restaurant and a few vending machines were, in case people wanted refreshments before they went berserk upstairs. Hide could feel his heartbeat beginning to pound in time with the thrumming bass coming from the second floor.

 

“He’s not here,” she said flatly, clicking her tongue. She didn’t sound surprised though.

 

“That sucks.” Hide thought he sounded pretty convincing. It’s not that he didn’t want to observe this Ken Kaneki person. More like he just wasn’t comfortable with the fact that they were standing an arm’s length away from a floor directory and he could make out the word, “Bar” underneath the Basement header. “You know, I’m pretty hungry. Maybe we should just, uh, grab a bite.” He nodded toward the counter where people were lined up and ordering food. Regular food. No alcohol. Hide’s kind of place.

 

“God, Hide, don’t shit your pants _now_ ,” Touka snapped at him, walking across the restaurant. “We’re going downstairs.”

 

 _Fuck_ , Hide mouthed to himself but after a few seconds, he managed to get himself to follow after Touka as she purposefully strode toward the staircase on the far right end of the floor. His prayers had gone unanswered and he tried desperately not to think about what he was going to have to deal with in a matter of minutes. A bar. Drinks. _Uggghhhh_. He rubbed his palms together nervously and of course they’d be slick with sweat.

 

But Touka wasn’t totally heartless, at least. She stopped at the lip of the first step down and turned to Hide with what looked like the slightest hint of _worry_ on her face. “Hey, you okay? You look like you’re going to puke your face off. And you haven’t even gotten anything in your system yet.”

 

“What? Nah, I’m fine,” he waved her off. “Are you sure _you’re_ okay? You haven’t been this concerned about me since I twisted my ankle. Five years ago.”

 

She swatted his arm. “Don’t be a dick. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was doing this for you, too. It’s not _only_ because I want in on Kaneki’s connections.”

 

“Right.”

 

“I thought I told you not to be a dick.”

 

He held up his hands. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just hard when you do the I-actually-care routine,” he said, barely suppressing a smile. Touka was a difficult girl to deal with. She was fiery when angered and smoldering when not. It was tough to reach even a stalemate when she was determined. The only one who could ever really beat her in an argument was her real brother, Ayato. When she opened up like this, it was easy to want to take advantage of it, but yeah, she’d called him out on that and it put things back in perspective. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I know, okay? I know you feel sorry for me, but I’m good. This might be a good idea, actually.”

 

“Which one, the one about me using you to get what I want or the one about me forcing you to drink alcohol so you can get over your stupid trauma? Because I think they’re both great.”

 

And regular Touka was back as fast as she’d disappeared a few seconds ago. Hide couldn’t help grinning at that. “Yeah. I think you’re on to something there.”

 

“Glad to see we’re both thinking it, then.”

 

They took that as the unspoken cue to head downstairs. Even though he’d started to feel a bit better about what he was getting into, it seemed like whatever bravado he’d mustered up was failing him with each step he took. He could feel his nerve draining out of him slowly, but surely, as the distant throb of the DJ’s playlist faded completely. He just _knew_ it was going to be like when he’d watched Attack on Titan once. Knowing full well that shit was about to hit the fan but still hoping everything would be okay, and having your grim expectations met in the worst way possible. And Mom said anime could never replace real life experience.

 

Reaching the bottom step was the moment Hide dreaded the most, but it inevitably came and Touka was still going. He strongly considered just turning around now, but he knew he’d said things he couldn’t take back. If he did, Touka would call him a shithead and never depend on him for anything ever again. Meaning she would never owe him again. Meaning he could never again ask _her_ for favors. Even _he_ wasn’t that much of an idiot.

 

Touka stopped walking so fast he bumped into her. Fortunately, she didn’t kick him for it. Her attention was much too focused on a specific part of the bar. “There he is,” she breathed.

 

Hide followed her line of sight to the back of a man in black jeans and a red polo shirt hanging untucked in some places like he couldn’t have been bothered to tuck it in properly. That wasn’t the part that made him stand out though. It was the guy’s _white_ hair. It was white as a friggin’ snowflake, how was that even possible? No, wait, Hide remembered. He’d read about this somewhere. Kaneki was either an albino, or he had some other condition Hide couldn’t rack his mind for the name of.

 

As they watched, Kaneki, shot in hand, was spoken to by the bartender—a slim man with half of his head shaved and the other half tied into a rather long ponytail. Tattoos, piercings, a spiked collar, and black leather _everything_ completed his playing-for-goth-stereotype look. Because Hide couldn’t see Kaneki’s face, he could only surmise from the bartender’s smile that they were having a good conversation.

 

“How is it?” Touka asked, a bit of anxiety bleeding through her tone.

 

Hide squinted a little. “Can’t read lips from here,” he said quietly. “Can’t see Kaneki’s face either, so I think I need a better vantage point…”

 

“Got it.” Before Touka could move, he caught her arm. “Hey,” he said. “How exactly are we supposed to be inconspicuous about this? The place isn’t exactly full of people. What’s your plan?”

 

“Of course I have a plan, moron,” she snorted derisively, snatching her arm away. “I have friends who want that membership. They’re over there, to the back.” She pointed at a couple of people lounging in the far corner, sharing a tall bottle of what looked like beer. One of them seemed a little familiar—

 

“Is that… Is that _Nishio?_ ” Hide was stunned. “He _goes_ here?”

 

“Yes, you’re the only one in your whole university who doesn’t go drinking ever. What a surprise,” Touka said dryly. “Listen up. I’ll go in with you, talk to Uta and Kaneki for a sec. Introduce you. Then we’ll head over to Nishio and Kimi. They’re in a good position, yeah? That way, you can watch Kaneki from there _and_ you can drink a little. Sound good?”

 

“Sounds great,” Hide said, trying to avoid a sarcastic edge.

 

She shrugged that off and walked in. When they’d gotten close enough, Uta the goth bartender noticed them and the way his eyes lit up when he saw Touka was all the confirmation Hide needed for his suspicions. Touka went there at least twice a week. Maybe even thrice. And this was _Roppongi_. It wasn’t exactly the closest place to Nerima. Silently, he lamented the poor ability of every single bouncer in Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Minato combined.

 

“Touka! I thought you’d be here by now,” Uta grinned. “You want the usual?”

 

“Yeah, in a bit,” she replied. She made room for Hide and gestured to him. “This is my friend, Hide. He’s from Kamii and he’s new here. Thought I’d show him around a little.”

 

“Kind as always, aren’t you, Touka?” Uta said with a wry smile.

 

“Shut up.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Hide.” He extended a hand. Hide took it. “I’m Uta. Bartender around here Monday to Friday nights from six to twelve.” He angled his head a little as he let go of Hide. “The gentleman over here on my left is Kaneki and he seems to be in a, hmm, _sour_ mood tonight.”

 

“ _Uta_ ,” came the quiet growl from the man who’d been silent up until that point. Kaneki lowered his shot glass and regarded Hide for a moment, giving him an up-down inspection that made his face burn for some reason. It was weird. No, scratch that. It was _degrading_. It was like Kaneki was trying to decide whether he was worthy of attention. After a long minute of silence, the white-haired jerk held out his hand.

 

“My name is Ken,” he said. Hide noted the apparent softness of his voice. The way it _seemed_ to shy away from the light like a nocturnal animal. “Ken Kaneki.”

 

Oh, but Hide watched Animal Planet. He knew all about nocturnal things. He knew how they liked to trick you with a cute face. He knew how they tried to lure you into their den with promises and then devour you until nothing’s left. Just the same, Hide could easily read the danger in Ken Kaneki’s gentle façade. From the cruel, almost maniacal glint that made his gray eyes look like steel to the practiced way his thin lips curled up into what he obviously thought was a smile and to the way his body, slight though it was, moved to the rhythm of seduction, if seduction were a song.

 

He wasn’t fooled. Not by a long shot.

 

“I’m Hide. Hideyoshi Nagachika. Pleasure to meetcha, Kaneki,” he said, taking Kaneki’s hand and shaking it with an enthusiasm that threw everyone except Touka off. He met Kaneki’s eyes and casually sent a warning his way. A don’t-you-mess-with-me-I-know-what-you’re-up-to warning look. _Yeah, that’s right. I know how to do that,_ he thought as he grinned not at Kaneki, but at the way Kaneki obviously realized that he’d been wrong when he’d pegged Hide as a simpleton. He released Kaneki’s hand with a flourish and turned to Touka. “So, you said Nishio was here?”

 

“Uh, yeah.” She seemed to get jarred back into their plan. “Yeah, he’s over there at the back,” she said, pointing. “Uta, the usual for me and for this guy?” She glanced over at Hide and sighed. “Just give him a virgin. He’s driving me home tonight.”

 

“Literally,” Hide added, to avoid any misunderstandings he was tired of explaining.

 

Uta smiled and didn’t ask questions. Hide, having no idea what a “virgin” drink meant, took it from context and simply touched Touka’s arm in a silent thank you. She rolled her eyes. Uta returned with their drinks and they took them, nodding to Kaneki one last time before they made for Nishio’s table.

 

“See what I meant?” she asked on the way. “Intense.”

 

“If you brought me here to contradict you, sorry that’s not happening.”

 

She heaved another sigh. “I thought maybe I was overthinking it. I was hoping.”

 

“Yeah, well…” Hide scratched the back of his neck. “You’re gonna need some heavy-lifting with this one.”

 

They reached Nishio’s table and after a few punches to the arm, made themselves comfortable. The Kamii sophomore had one arm around his girlfriend, Kimi, who was eyeing Hide in a way that made it _very_ hard to act like he hadn’t once walked in on them getting it on. That aside, it quickly became a not-so bad night. Hide didn’t have to look like he wasn’t drinking—thanks to the mocktail in his hand—and he got to talk a lot. Talking was yet another one of his many specialties.

 

As the night wore on and more people began to drift into the bar, Hide found the task of observing Kaneki out of the corner of his eye getting increasingly difficult. Now, he wasn’t saying it was proving impossible, but people were starting to block the way sometimes, talking to Kaneki, being touched by Kaneki’s wandering fingers, ogling Kaneki’s ass… Wow. Hide had sorely underestimated the guy’s popularity. It was obvious that gender wasn’t an issue. If he strained hard enough, he had a feeling he would hear Kaneki’s name on the lips of every person within a two-table radius of his own.

 

When the hands of Hide’s watch hit midnight, he observed as Uta ducked out of his shift and Kaneki seemed to straighten a bit in his seat. Hide frowned. Something was going to happen. Someone was coming, maybe?

 

“Touka,” he muttered. “Does that guy have a girlfriend?”

 

“Boyfriend, actually,” Touka corrected him, “if you like labels. But I think it’s more of…”

 

Nishio leaned over the table with a knowing smile. “Talk about jumping on the bandwagon,” he said. “Kaneki, huh?”

 

Hide grimaced. “Well, yeah. But it’s not like we _like_ talking about him.”

 

“You’re not the only one. You think every straight guy in here doesn’t want to fuck the shit outta him—aw man, Kimi, no I’m not talking about _me_.”

 

Kimi had her hands folded across her chest, signaling that she was not a happy girlfriend. “You could say it like you mean it, you know.”

 

Nishio didn’t reply so much as growl a little and try to eat her face off, murmuring things like “I’m not fucking gay” or “I’m not into that kinda shit” in between wet kisses. Hide wrinkled his nose and looked away, not wanting to be a part of _that_ conversation any more than he already had been. His attention wandered to Kaneki, who seemed overly interested in the contents of his shot glass without actually drinking it.

 

That was when Sir Flashy arrived, as Hide’s mind automatically jumped on a moniker the moment the man walked in. Sir Flashy was clad in a crisp white suit and an equally crisp haircut. His Maybelline commercial skin spoke lengths of what he spent his mornings doing. His entire _being_ stank of money and it made Hide’s stomach turn. Ugh. If there was anything he hated almost as much as he hated alcohol, it had to be flashy rich people who looked like they didn’t have to work a single second for every penny they earned.

 

Sir Flashy made the crowd part like the Red Sea, making his flamboyant way to…

 

“You’re kidding, right,” Hide said blandly just as Sir Flashy leaned an elbow against the counter and stuck his tongue into Kaneki’s mouth. Hide felt himself shiver with disgust. He had nothing against homos, but seriously? Ughhh. “Tell me that’s a joke, Touka.”

 

“Nope, and if you want to keep your head attached to your body, you should stop staring.” Touka grabbed him by the hair and turned him around to face Nishio and Kimi, who were, thankfully, done with their own session. She glanced at her watch. “Hey, did you get enough for your profile? Because we should probably get going.”

 

 _More than enough,_ Hide thought sourly. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

 

After they’d paid for their drinks at the counter, they skirted around Sir Flashy and Kaneki as they left. Hide was, to put it lightly, relieved to the point of collapse. He hadn’t realized just how much tension had built up inside of him like a coiled spring while he was in there. Kaneki wasn’t the sole reason, but he hadn’t helped either. Hide shook his head. He just wanted to go home and sleep. He didn’t want to think about his close brush with alcohol. He didn’t want to think about Kaneki’s dangerous yet beautiful eyes. He didn’t want to think about how he thought they were “beautiful” just now. He didn’t want to think about what Kaneki and Sir Flashy were going to be up to tonight.

 

For all those thoughts of his, if he’d only been paying attention, he might have noticed those dangerous eyes—those beautiful eyes—watching him as he left.

 

* * *

 

 

Hide passed Touka the index cards over lunch two days later. It was Sunday afternoon and they were outside a café, having lemonade and chocolate croissants. It was all nice and normal, marred only by the “profile” he’d put on the table, written in bullet points on four index cards joined by a metal ring. Touka went through them quietly, taking one or two sips of her lemonade.

 

“I still don’t get how you do it,” she said finally, setting them down.

 

He let his eyes widen in a show of innocence. “How I do what?”

 

“Again with the mind games. I mean, how do you do _this?_ ” She swept a hand over the index cards. “You got so much info on him and you talked to him for, what, thirty seconds?”

 

“I also kind of stared at him for three, four hours. Give or take.”

 

“No seriously, you ass. How do you do this?”

 

Hide leaned back, lemonade in hand. “I dunno,” he said, taking the straw between his teeth. “Been doing it for a while so I’ve gotten used to it. I just… _know_ what kind of person a person is from their actions, you get me?” It was hard to explain. When he observed someone, it was like he was unraveling a ball of string, trying to get to the center. It took a while at first, but if your hands got used to it, if your mind made it into a sort of unconscious action, you’d have a pile of string around you in no time. A pile of string, to Hide, was a pile of information. How could he explain that to Touka? To anyone, really?

 

Touka sighed, falling back against her chair. “Whatever, I’ll just take this. Thanks. I owe you one.”

 

“Just chalk it up to the other hundred you owe me.”

 

She just hissed, like she didn’t want to think about it. They sat in silence for a while, taking bites out of their croissants and drinking lemonade. It was a pleasant day, really. Not one for heavy conversation, Hide did his best to make it sound like it was no big deal when he said, “I have to get a job.”

 

Touka sat up at that, a wary look in her eyes. “Is your dad…?”

 

“It’s fine,” he said quickly. “Just… I don’t like not doing anything. Mom’s doing her best. Dad is too, even if he does that shit. I just don’t like being the only one not doing anything.”

 

“You _are_ doing something,” she said fiercely. It was touching. It really was. “You’re on a _Kamii_ scholarship, you idiot. Isn’t that huge enough? You’re studying so much it makes me feel sorry for your social life. Isn’t that enough?”

 

“No, it isn’t. I wish it could be. But it isn’t. So I’m gonna get a job. I have a list at home, even. Lots of places need a hand.”

 

Touka glared at him. “How are you going to study, huh? How are you going to keep your grades up? What if you lose your stupid scholarship?”

 

He raised his eyebrows and laughed. “Touka, are you _doubting_ my study schedule? Need I remind you of _yours_?”

 

“You’re a piece of shit. I’m still against this.”

 

“Even if you are, I’m going for it. It _would_ be nice though if you suggested _your_ part-time job.” It was a joke, though.

 

She wrinkled her nose much the same way he had the other night at Nishio and Kimi. “Ew. No. You’re not taking one step in that place.”

 

“C’mon. I’d look smokin’ hot in a maid outfit, and you know it.”

 

That pissed her off. “I am _so_ shoving that stupid head of yours up your ass.” She paused. “And that goes for both meanings.”

 

The image made Hide cringe. Okay, he wasn’t going to go there. Nope, not with Touka. That was borderline creepy. Instead he changed the subject. Leaning forward, he smiled slyly. “So how’re things with You-Know-Who?”

 

Touka squinted at him. “Do you _want_ to die, shithead?”

 

“Heeeeey, I’m being the concerned best friend here.”

 

She pressed her lips together and sank in her seat. Bringing up her girl-crush Yoriko was always a way for Hide to see her not-abrasive side and avoid a beating. “Not good,” she said, a surly look on her face. “I think she likes someone.”

 

“A guy in your class?”

 

Touka nodded. “She’s been talking about him for _weeks_. It sucks.”

 

Hide knew how _that_ felt like. Back in high school, he’d liked a girl too, but obviously, she’d been into Prince Popular and not Class Clown. Being funny or being crazy sociable was Hide’s strong suit, but it hadn’t done him much good in the face of actual handsome-ness. He tried not to sulk at the memory.

 

“Hey, you’re still her closest girl friend right? I think you’ve still got a chance.”

 

“That’s exactly why I haven’t _got_ a chance,” she growled, taking up her fork and stabbing her croissant. Hide had a feeling that she was imagining a poor boy’s body in its place. “We’re so close it’s just not happening!” She huffed. “Well, whatever. Not like I thought anything would happen in the first place.”

 

Hide reached out and ruffled her hair. “Hey, Touka, relax. Just be you. Underneath all the insults, bad temper, and horribly targeted karate skills, you’re a great girl. It’ll work out.”

 

She pushed his hand away and punched his shoulder over the table. “Ass,” she said quietly. “Thanks.”

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

“I’m still not helping you with the job, you know,” she warned. “You need to study.”

 

“Says the one who dragged me into a club the other day,” he said tauntingly. “You said I study too much.”

 

“You do,” she affirmed. “And I still think you should go out more. But I don’t think you should get a job. That’s something else.”

 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

 

“ _You’re_ welcome.”

 

Hide knew he was going to end up looking for a job anyway. It didn’t matter how nice Touka was being (he knew it was all because she understood where he was coming from). It didn’t matter if his mom thought the same way or if his dad stopped coming home entirely. It was all a matter of perspective. If he got a job now, it would help them pay off the bills, definitely. Mortgage, utility, all of it. Somehow. Hide wasn’t an idiot—he studied a lot too. He didn’t slack. He knew his scholarship depended on that.

 

He’d get by. No, he _had_ to.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Anteiku_. That was the bakery’s name.

 

They were looking for a delivery kid and he fit all the necessary requirements (which weren’t much anyway). Since it wasn’t too far from his place, he decided not to take the old sedan and hopped on his bike to get there. It was roughly a ten-minute ride, crossing a small park and a couple Family Marts. A scenic route, if there ever was one around here.

 

The bakery stood across the east entrance to the park. It was smaller than he’d expected and looked virtually brand-new. Below a red cloth awning, there was a glass window decorated in the name of the place, surrounded by small flowers leaning toward a sun, all hand-drawn in thin white marker. Just above the flowers and behind the name _Anteiku,_ different kinds of bread in wicker baskets were on display. Next to the sun he could see two glass domes beyond the window. One of which covered a chocolate cake covered in white icing. The other covered a three-tiered stand holding several differently decorated cupcakes. Hide got off his bike and chained it at one of the stations fronting the bakery. He felt almost sorry that he was only going to be a delivery kid. He would’ve liked to stay and try some of the things on display. Especially that one yellow cupcake with the sky blue and white icing on the topmost tier…

 

“Hello, are you coming inside?”

 

Hide whirled around to see a tall woman wearing an apron over chef’s clothes. Her kind smile left Hide speechless for a few seconds.

 

“Oh, ah, um…” He cleared his throat and straightened before he could look like any more of a moron. “I’m, uh, Hideyoshi Nagachika, ma’am.” He bowed quickly and pulled out the newspaper cutout with Anteiku’s job offer. “I’m, uh, here for the delivery boy job.”

 

She nodded, like it was something she’d expected. “I see. The manager is out right now, but I think he’ll be back in a few minutes. Do you want to wait inside?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “I’d like that.”

 

The bakery’s interior was nothing short of _adorable_ , in Hide’s opinion. It was like the owner had tried to pull all the stops in making the whole thing as home-y as possible.

 

There was an assortment of sky blue and white (like the cupcake? Hide wondered if it was a thing here) wooden chairs. To the walls, there were dark gray couches covered in knitted blankets and throw pillows. The tables were covered in thin white cloth and each one had a small vase with a single flower in it. A daisy. Shelves with old little knick-knacks were up on the walls next to a few framed scenery photos and paintings.

 

“Cute, isn’t it?” the lady next to him remarked with the same smile she’d had outside. “The manager’s a little quiet and most of the time, he’s a bit off—it also sucks when he forgets he’s not supposed to smoke in here—but when he works on the store or when he’s in the kitchen, he turns into something else entirely.”

 

“It’s like his real self comes out, huh, Kaya?” another voice chimed in. It was a young girl behind the counter. She was smiling brightly at the both of them. Hide liked her immediately. “Good morning!”

 

“His name is Hideyoshi Nagachika,” Kaya informed the girl. “He’s here for the delivery job.”

 

“Really? This is great!” she said cheerily. “Hey, Nagachika, want anything to eat while waiting? It’s on us, since you’re going to be working here and stuff.”

 

“I’ll pay for it,” Hide said hastily. “I mean…” He cut himself off. Somehow, he couldn’t tell her that Anteiku was only one of his choices. He still hadn’t decided yet. “Uh… I can’t ask for freebies before I get the job, right? Oh, and just call me Hide. Hide’s fine.”

 

“I’m Hinami. Call me Hina,” the girl replied. “It’s okay. Consider it a free sample and tell your friends how awesome Anteiku is!”

 

Hide flashed her a thumbs up. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, walking over to the display cases next to the cashier.

 

“Hina, I’ll call Yoshimura. He’ll be down in a sec,” Kaya said as she bypassed the counter and entered a door with the sign, “Anteiku staff only.”

 

Hide continued to take stock of the various cakes and pastries on display. They all looked incredibly delicate—like porcelain, almost. Whoever made them had some gentle hands. If Hide even went _near_ the kitchen at Touka’s place, both siblings would yell at him not to blow anything up. All he’d want to do was open up the fridge and get some milk. And they thought _he_ exaggerated a lot. Hmph.

 

“Who’s Yoshimura?” he asked Hina, who was floating over him excitedly as he decided on getting the cupcake he’d been eyeing from outside.

 

“He’s the assistant manager for Anteiku,” Hina explained as she opened up the display case from behind to pull out the ceramic tray with the blue-and-white icing yellow cupcakes. “Natsuzora _,_ ” they were called. Summer sky. Made sense. “He’s incredibly nice to everybody here. Kaya says he makes the best coffee ever, but I don’t know. I don’t drink the stuff.”

 

He didn't pay for the cupcake, but he _did_ leave a generous tip, which earned him Hina's dazzling little smile. “Awesome,” he said. “Maybe I’ll order coffee sometime.”

 

The staff door opened and an old man stepped out. Well, he _looked_ old, but the spryness in his step and the tall way in which he carried himself spoke of a secret youth hidden within him somewhere. Hide suddenly knew he wanted to be like _that_ when he grew up. The old man turned to him, smiling. Everyone in Anteiku seemed to be smiling all the time. It was enough to warm Hide’s heart toward the place. Maybe he’d decide to work here. Maybe this was the place.

 

“Hello, Kaya tells me you’re here for the job offering?” the old man—Hide presumed this was Yoshimura—said.

 

“Yeah,” Hide said. “I’d love to work here—um, I mean, if your manager would let me, though.”

 

“I doubt he’ll find a reason not to hire you. You seem to be a trustworthy lad.”

 

“You think so?” He laughed. “Wait till you see my resumé. It’ll be a bomb.”

 

“I don’t know whether or not you’re being sarcastic about that, but I’m sure it will be.”

 

Yoshimura invited Hide to sit down. Hina served Hide’s cupcake and laid two cups of water on the table. They settled into casual conversation, mostly about Hide. What he did, where he went to school, what his course was, and why he wanted a job.

 

“Just to earn a little money to help out at home,” he said, taking a hearty bite out of the cupcake. It was delicious.

 

“Not only polite, but chivalrous as well,” Yoshimura commented, making Hide blush a little.

 

“Aw, well, if you put it that way, I mean…”

 

“Manager’s here!” Hina sang from behind the counter.

 

Yoshimura stood at that and Hide followed suit. The bakery entrance opened with a tinkle of the golden bell attached to its head. There was a little apprehension eating away at Hide’s insides. He was really starting to like Anteiku and he sincerely wanted to work here now. This was the place, he was sure of it. Now the only thing was to impress the manager.

 

“Good morning, Kaneki.”

 

The name made Hide freeze behind Yoshimura. Kaneki. _The_ Kaneki? Kaneki, as in Ghoul 20 Bar Kaneki? Nocturnal Animal Kaneki? Danger Level Infinity Kaneki? Sir Flashy’s Tongue In My Mouth Kaneki? _That_ Kaneki? Oh God.

 

 _Shitshitshit_ was all that was going through Hide’s brain as the man in question walked in through the door and confirmed all his suspicions and fears. There was no mistaking that white hair and those dangerous, beautiful ( _Stop that, brain,_ thought Hide angrily) eyes.

 

“Good mor…ning,” said Kaneki, his greeting punctuated by a yawn. His drowsy gaze settled first on Yoshimura then, slowly, inevitably, on Hide. All at once, it was like he could _see_ the nocturnal animal within Kaneki, retreating back with a snarl. “What are _you_ doing here?” he asked in that same soft voice but in a flat, almost _bored_ tone that did nothing to make Hide like him.

 

“Same to you,” Hide replied brusquely.

 

Yoshimura regarded the exchange with raised eyebrows. “I see you both know each other,” he said.

 

“Unfortunately.” Kaneki crossed his arms and scowled at Hide. “I happen to be the manager of Anteiku. So what _are_ you doing here?”

 

Hide paused. Why was he here again? Damn, Kaneki was throwing off his mental process. _The job_ , his brain poked him with. Right. The job. The cute cupcakes. The simple yet welcoming upholstery. The friendly staff. Natsuzora. The _job_. “I’m here,” he managed to say, “for your delivery job.”

 

Kaneki frowned, like he was having trouble remembering that he’d even put that job offering out. He looked at Yoshimura. “How’d he do?”

 

“Better than the rest,” the old man said, which might have flattered Hide, if he weren’t so disturbed by the fact that yes, Ken Kaneki was the owner of this adorably furnished bakeshop. “I believe he’ll do well.”

 

“Hm.” Kaneki tapped a finger against his arm. “Let me be the judge of that.” He turned to Hide. “You’ll be a temp. Two weeks, tops. Then I’ll decide whether you stay on.”

 

Hide said nothing, not trusting himself to speak and screw up an opportunity that had just been served to him on what pretended to be a silver platter. He simply nodded and excused himself from the store. About halfway home, he realized that he’d left his cupcake unfinished on the table. What a waste. Well, he was a temp for Anteiku now. He’d have plenty of time to get another one.

 

He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not so he let his mind shut off for a few minutes, letting his legs pedal him forward until things went numb. He’d figure this out when he got home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think this chapter reflects a sort of return to my old style. Ugh. So much for experimentation. Anyway, all the support just kinda made me work on this chapter so fast, it’s amazing. It also made me revert to my old tricks, so I hope things didn’t get too repetitive. I know things are dragging, but the boys will get some action soon, I promise.  
> Hope you’ll still be around to see it!


	3. Facing the Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive THANK YOU again to errybady who liked the last chapter! ;)  
> This update has some more Kaneki than the past two (that’s not to say that he totally takes over the chap tho), but tbh the ending made me go, “oh shit are they even gonna like this?”  
> Woot woot for a chunk of Hide backstory~  
> I don’t speak French. Been to France, still can’t speak a word. Idegaf Shuu can say two words until he fucks up the whole language. Whatever.  
> This chapter marks the first and last time I will ever get so close to writing about anyone taking a shit. Seriously.  
> Lastly, Tediore is a gun brand from Borderlands, pretend it’s real, folks, bc idk really about gun brands irl  
> On a slightly related note, does anybody else have “We Are Broken” by Paramore on their HideKane playlist…? Or am I just masochistic like that?

Ken Kaneki was a slave driver. Hide knew it, accepted it, filed it away the moment he walked through Anteiku’s door on his first day of work and received a _very_ long list of deliveries from its manager. Like every bad employee would on their first day, Hide whined about how he didn’t know where _half_ of those places were. How was he supposed to do all of that alone anyway?

 

“Then I’ll go with you and show you the way,” Kaneki said quietly, pulling down the facemask covering his mouth. First thing in the morning and he was already covered in flour. The analytical part of Hide’s brain was on overdrive, trying to figure out what Kaneki’s mixed signals meant (was he trying to be nice or something?). The less analytical, more _Hide_ part of Hide’s brain was busy trying to decide whether Kaneki was cute in his Anteiku baker’s uniform with those little smudges of white all over his face.

 

“Um, is Koma busy with stuff?” Enji Koma was the guy in charge of Anteiku’s kitchen prep and outside deliveries. Hide had never met Koma, but Irimi had quickly briefed him that morning about the staff before she ran off doing who-knows-what, so he knew enough to see that Kaneki was overstepping his role a little. Or was he? Maybe because he was manager, he could do things like up and help the delivery boy. Maybe…

 

“No, he’s taking sick leave. He ate something he shouldn’t have when he was doing prep last week.”

 

“Yikes. That bad?” Guess it wasn’t such a selfless gesture, after all.

 

“That bad,” Kaneki affirmed, walking over to the coffee station’s sink behind the display cases. He ran his hands under some water for a couple seconds and splashed his face a bit before turning off the faucet. He took a few pulls of tissue from a nearby tissue box and wiped his face and hands dry. “Irimi’s doing double duty since he’s gone. Hina and Yoshimura don’t usually get here early enough to catch the morning delivery moving out. I’m the only one who can do this, whether you like that or not.”

 

Hide flushed a little. Being read before he could properly read the other person was still something he wasn’t used to. He slid his hands (and the list) into his pockets and shuffled his feet, muttering, “I never said I didn’t want your help…”

 

“I guess you didn’t.” Kaneki tossed the wet tissues into a bin. He fished something out of his pocket. A wristwatch. “You’re running late. Do you need me or not?”

 

That was how, minutes later, Hide ended up on the most painfully awkward drive of his life. It was even worse than the time he’d let his ex’s mom hitch a ride because the rain was coming down harder than the morning forecast had let on. Hide had been the literal elephant in the room—car—back then. The silence had been unbearable, but somehow, it was like an even bigger elephant had decided to squeeze into the space between Hide and Kaneki.

 

For the millionth time since they left Anteiku, Hide’s eyes flicked over to Kaneki then back to the road. The manager was being weirdly quiet as he stared straight ahead of them. Well, he wasn’t exactly the mouthy type, but this wasn’t your typical nothing-to-say silence. This was a something-to-say-but-can’t-say-it kind of silence. The worst kind of them all.

 

“Soooo,” Hide began to say, turning a corner, “Irimi told me you’re a specialty chef? What’s your specialty?”

 

Even from the driver’s seat, it was obvious when Kaneki stiffened at being addressed. Hide had that in his notes. Back at Ghoul 20, Kaneki had, at first glance, always seemed at ease with talking to people and had no problem feeling them up or letting them feel him up. Still, there were those moments—split seconds, really—that Hide caught him looking incredibly uncomfortable with what he was doing. That made him figure maybe Kaneki had once been an awkward recluse of a kid. That train of thought was something he always tried to stop though. Mostly because it always made him wonder, _What turned him into this, then?_

 

“Cupcakes,” was the answer after several long seconds.

 

“Cupcakes?” Somehow it sounded so unreal, but at the same time it sounded so… _right_. Spot-on, even.

 

“I make other things,” Kaneki added sharply, like he felt like he was being judged. He wasn’t. Not really. “Bread, pies, cakes, tarts, rolls, whatever. I just do cupcakes more often.” _And better_ , was the silent attachment that Hide caught.

 

“Okay, cool,” he said, flashing Kaneki a sunny grin he totally meant. Unlike the one he’d first sent Kaneki’s way a few nights ago. “Oh, hey. First stop.” He let the small truck roll to a halt a little too close to the curb in front of an old coffee shop.

 

Kaneki was gaping at him somewhat. It was making Hide uneasy. Was Kaneki waiting for something else? What for? Had Hide said something wrong? Neither of them said much the whole time… But then, before Hide could figure anything out, the moment passed and Kaneki’s eyes slid down to the door handle on his side. “Yeah, I’ll go inside and let them know we’re here. Is the receipt with you?”

 

“You betcha,” Hide told him cheerily. “I’ll open up the back while you do your thing.”

 

They both got out of the truck at the same time, both in a little more of a hurry than they should have been.

 

Later, on the way back, Kaneki was the one who started the conversation. A first! The whole time, it had been Hide starting every single discussion about baking or the neighborhood or what they were delivering or whatever topic under the sun. They had fallen into a really nice to-and-fro kind of flow and Hide had to admit he didn’t particularly dislike talking to Anteiku Kaneki. It was a lot different from and a lot better than talking to Ghoul 20 Kaneki. He resisted the urge to pat his newfound friend on the back. That might have brought things ten steps backward.

 

“Did you… Did you, you know… try a cupcake?” Kaneki asked tentatively. His hands were clasped loosely on his lap. One of his fingers twitched. Nervous. He was nervous.

 

“Yeah,” Hide said, feeling his heart rate pick up slightly. “One of yours, I guess? It was called Natsuzora.”

 

A small, sharp intake of breath. Yep. Kaneki was nervous, alright. Why was this making Hide so giddy? “Well, what did you think?”

 

“What did I think? I thought it was _amazing_ ,” Hide pulled up the brake as they parked behind Anteiku. He met Kaneki’s eyes and grinned earnestly. “Let me tell you, man, you’ve got some serious talent, you know?” He meant it. He really meant it. He wondered why he did. He couldn’t help but wonder, really, why he wanted to see Kaneki smile. Just once.

 

Kaneki didn’t smile. In the space between one second and two, Hide watched as his face went from surprise to relief to fear then _anger_. “Oh,” he said softly. It was that voice again. That nocturnal animal voice. Ghoul 20 Kaneki. “Well. Thanks.” He yanked the door handle much harder than he needed to and jumped out. “Lock before you leave. You know when your second shift starts later. Irimi will help you.” Then, just like that, he was gone and Hide was left alone, gawking at the empty passenger seat beside him.

 

Slowly, he screwed his eyes shut and made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. What _was_ that? Just when he’d thought he was starting to understand the mystery that was Ken Kaneki, he’d been stumped. Just when he’d thought maybe they could be friends, he’d been left alone. He didn’t get it. He just didn’t get what Kaneki’s deal was.

 

But he wanted to. For some weird reason unknown to him, he really wanted to get it. That was probably the most confusing part of all.

 

* * *

 

 

Hide was at Touka’s place later that week, playing some well-deserved Tekken Tag 2 on the secondhand Playstation 3 her dad had sent over from China (sweet as the man could be, sometimes he didn’t really think before acting), when she brought up the job thing again.

 

He lowered his controller and leaned back against his hands, throwing his head back and letting out this noise that was half-frustrated-growl, half-strangled-moan. He _really_ didn’t want to think about that right now. Not when he was ten tries in trying to take down AI Jun Kazama with Forest Law and whoever he could team up with him. He just really wanted to see Law’s ending tonight.

 

“Touka, I’m going to die again if you interrupt the tag combo like that,” he told her in a chastising tone he knew she hated. “You know these things need focus, a practiced hand and—”

 

“Did Kaneki do something to you or what?” She was in the kitchen throwing some microwaveables into the oven, but since the Kirishima apartment was so small, she didn’t really have to raise her voice.

 

Hide stared hard at the pause menu. “No,” he said, louder than he meant to. “I mean… no. Not exactly. It’s just me.”

 

He’d told her about the whole enchilada just the other day and of course she’d spent the better half of an hour laughing her head off at his expense.

 

_“So… lemme get this straight,” she said, breathless, “you’re a delivery boy at this… bakeshop.”_

_“Yes,” Hide said grudgingly, scowling down at a pillow in his arms, which was also starting to look like some potential anti-Touka ammunition._

_“It’s a great place, looks like a granny’s house, everybody’s in a peachy mood all the time, and the cupcakes are_ lovely _.”_

_“Yes, okay? It doesn’t kill a guy to like a decent cupcake.” He closed his eyes and willed her silently to get it over with._

_“And,” Touka said dramatically, “you work… for Ken Kaneki.” She burst into peals of laughter again. “This… This is_ priceless _!”_

 

“What do you mean, ‘just you’?” she asked absentmindedly, likely watching the microwave.

 

Deciding to busy himself with going through the move rosters, Hide picked up the controller again. “I mean it like I said it,” he said. “I’m just being regular ole me. Overly friendly, overthinking Hideyoshi.”

 

“You screwed up, huh?”

 

“Probably.”

 

“Dumbass.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

The microwave dinged to signal that dinner was ready. Touka served him the steaming hot pasta in its little black plastic tray. After Touka handed him a fork, they said their thanks for the meal and dug in.

 

“When were you going to tell me you were crushing on Ken Kaneki, huh?” she asked him eventually. “What was this going to be, a solo act?”

 

Hide put down his pasta, looking at Touka with a very unhappy expression. “I’m not crushing on him,” he said sternly. “He’s just… weird.”

 

“Weird like…?”

 

“Weird like I can’t get a read on him. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Or I _think_ I do, but then I don’t. It’s weird.”

 

“You’re curious,” she said around a mouthful of Bolognese. “You want to know more about him.”

 

“I do,” he admitted.

 

“You’re crushing on him.”

 

“Am not.”

 

“Are too.”

 

“Am _not_.”

 

“You are, you are,” she said, scraping up the last of her dinner. “That’s what a crush _is_. Or did you forget that, oh great Master of Human Behavior?”

 

“Or maybe I’m just weirded out because I can’t read a guy for once,” he shot back at her. “Seriously, Touka, I’m not gay. I’m not going to suddenly _transform_ into a gay man. I’m not crushing on Ken Kaneki.”

 

“Just throwing it out there, I thought I was straight before I started liking Yoriko.”

 

“That’s different.”

 

“ _Hide_ , these aren’t two different things,” Touka said firmly, lowering her now clean pasta tray. “If you really were a Kamii nerd, you’d see that.” She held her hand out for his tray. When he gave it to her, she brought both trays to the kitchen, where she threw them away and pulled a couple energy drinks out of the fridge. She tossed one to Hide, who caught it deftly with one hand.

 

“When’s Ayato coming home?” he said, twisting the cap open.

 

“In an hour, I think,” Touka replied, leaning against the tiny kitchen counter. “He’s just like you now. A delivery boy.”

 

“Huh. Didn’t know I was such a trendsetter.”

 

“Good for you,” she said dryly. “I sure hope I don’t start doubting my sexuality _again_.”

 

Hide laughed. What? It was funny. He gestured to his controller. “Wanna help me out here? I need to see someone beat the shit outta this thing before I go.”

 

“You know I suck at using anybody other than Miguel or Yoshimitsu, right?”

 

“Ah, but Touka, aren’t you forgetting the fine art of button mashing? ’Sides, Law isn’t so hard to get the hang of.”

 

“True that… Fine. Three rounds. Then you go home and think about your new man-crush.”

 

“Deal.”

 

Touka smirked and pushed off the counter.

 

* * *

  

Friday was long and uneventful and _long_. It was chock-full of subjects that Hide couldn’t care less about and dreadfully short breaks between them. Add the extremely quiet and just plain sad morning drive with Kaneki and Nishio’s propensity to spring random odd jobs on him (just because he was one of Kamii’s odd job guys) to the mix, and Hide had pretty much the worst Friday he’d had in a long while. This wasn’t even considering the fact that he’d lost sleep the previous night thinking about, as Touka put it, his new “man-crush.”

 

But Hideyoshi Nagachika wasn’t about to let that bring him down, right? He was Sunny McSunshine—as he personally liked to think of himself. His hair was solid (and literal) proof of that. Bleaching it had been his way of physically picking himself up. It was fun to look at in the morning and it really made him smile. Life could get pretty shitty, but with the right frame of mind, it got so much lighter. That meant smiling. A _lot_.

 

He really liked smiling, though, and he tried to find every reason he could to do it. He liked it even better when he made _other_ people smile, too. It was a unique personal victory to get sullen people to crack even the smallest of grins. In fact, he was pretty sure there wasn’t anybody in Kamii he hadn’t gotten to smile or laugh at least once. There wasn’t anybody in his neighborhood either. In Anteiku, where everybody already smiled enough for the entire galaxy, he was able to make them smile _even more_. Except for one person. Just one.

 

 _Kaneki_ , he thought glumly. _Why’s he such a downer anyway?_ He knew he was just trying to cheer himself up. Kaneki was a man that he was only beginning to scratch the surface of. Still, after four days of working as a temp, he liked to think he was starting to see Kaneki a little better. A little.

 

The manager didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. Instead, all his emotions seemed to run through some current deep beneath his typical lackluster expression and sometimes, they surfaced in really short, uncontrolled bursts—impossible for anyone to catch under normal circumstances, but Hide of course, was special. Kaneki was seriously talented at containing his emotional attacks. He had the (depressing, Hide thought) habit of smothering and ironing out his expressions until they gave away next to nothing. Hide wondered if this was something part of Kaneki’s default personality, or if this was some sort of effect of whatever had changed him. The latter was starting to look more convincing as the days passed.

 

He went home dragging his feet, hoping to just get some rest. Just as he rolled his bike up to the porch though, he heard it. That familiar, faint sound of breaking glass and deep, throaty roaring. Dad was home early, apparently. Hide closed his eyes, let out a long sigh through his nose. No rest for him at all today, it seemed. He pulled the door open.

 

“I’m home,” he said, cheery as always. Leaving his bike by the door, he stepped on the back end of one of his shoes and pulled out his foot. After doing the same with the other, he slipped on his indoor slippers and walked down the hallway, turning left to a familiar scene.

 

In the living room, Dad was a heaving wolverine in salaryman’s clothes. Nostrils flaring, he turned to Hide. “Well, it’s about damn time!” Dad snarled, pointing the jagged top half of a Guinness at him. He wheeled around, still holding the broken bottle, and yelled at the couch. “Wouldja look at that, your wonderful son is home—go on, get outta there and have a fuckin’ party!”

 

“No!” came the shrill squeak from behind the couch. “No, go away! Both of you _leave!_ ”

 

“Hi Mom, hi Dad,” Hide said simply, crossing the living room to get to the kitchen. “Did you guys have dinner already?”

 

They weren’t listening. Never were. Never would be. Dad started yelling about something else—something about Hide being a stupid good-for-nothing or whatever. Mom was still whimpering, curled up in a ball in the narrow space between the couch and the wall.

 

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, ducking as the half-Guinness went flying at him, smashing into one of the kitchen cupboards. He straightened and examined the shards sticking out of the wood. “Damn. Gotta pay for that now too,” he muttered.

 

“Where’s my fuckin’ TV?” Dad slurred, staggering toward Hide. “Where is it, you little asswipe? _Where is it?_ ”

 

“You pawned it off yesterday, remember?” Hide was going through the fridge. “Said something about getting a Tediore?”

 

“You better fuckin’ believe I’m gonna get a Tediore, shitstick.” Dad grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and threw him aside like a ragdoll. “That way, I can shoot that stupid, tiny head of yours into bits!”

 

Hide went flying and hit his head on the floor, cutting his cheek with some of the stray bits of glass scattered on it. But that didn’t matter—he had a hard head and he’d scored a little yogurt cup from the back of the fridge. He held on to it while Dad satisfied himself with a couple kicks to his stomach (better than his back, at least). Fortunately, when in one of his rages, Dad lost interest quickly. He moved off to the open fridge and pulled out yet another Guinness. He liked those.

 

Reaching into his pocket for an old wad of tissue, Hide ran it under some water at the kitchen sink before pressing it to his face to wipe off the blood he could feel trickling down his cheek. Looking around, he realized that there was nothing much he could do tonight for dinner. Usually, he made it for both of them, since Mom was always too terrified to do anything when night came. But Dad had come home earlier than expected today. Guess there wasn’t anything he could do about that.

 

“I’m eating out with some friends!” he announced, before prancing out of the kitchen and tossing the bloody wet tissue into a trashcan.

 

“Yeah, you better run!” Dad bellowed. “You shitty coward!”

 

“Bye Dad, bye Mom,” was his only reply as he left the living room.

 

It was only as Hide went out the front door that he was able to release the breath he’d been holding the whole time. He almost thought he’d cry when he pedaled out onto the road, too. But it had been a while since he’d last done that. He was pretty damn sure his eyes and his heart had already forgotten how to cry.

 

* * *

 

 

He didn’t realize where he was until he got the bouncer to let him in (Touka had kind of explained it to him the other day). When he was in line at the restaurant, it clicked in his head. He spun around in a full 360 and couldn’t believe it. He’d ended up in Ghoul 20. Of all the places in Tokyo he could’ve gone, he’d gone to _Ghoul 20_. How the hell did he end up here?

 

Well, whatever. The food looked good and he was starving after that one yogurt cup. He couldn’t really bring himself to care much for what he ordered so he ended up getting an oyakodon set for two people. He brought it to an empty table and ignored all the people staring at him as he wolfed down a dinner meant for two all by himself. So what if it was a bit sad? He was full, he was content, and it was only 11:30.

 

When he settled back in his seat, he took his phone out of his jacket pocket and thumbed a quick text to Touka telling her where he was and a watered-down explanation of what had happened back home. It took several seconds for her reply to come.

 

_w8 im otw lets talk dont do anything stupid_

 

He grinned and sent her a simple _Roger_ _that_ and flipped his phone closed. That was about the time he knew he needed to take a little trip to the men’s room. He let a distressed-looking couple take his table and kept his eyes peeled for the lavatory signs. He found them by the staircase leading both up to the dance floors and down to the bar Kaneki frequented.

 

 _Kaneki_. The thought of him made Hide take a step down toward the bar. Then the memory of what had just happened with Dad made him step back. Alcohol was in there. Alcohol, that ugly demon of demons. Hide couldn’t control the shudder that went through him. He looked up at the sign reading “Restroom.” Aaaaaand, of _course_ it would be downstairs. Of course. He sighed.

 

He reached the bottom of the stairs and found himself searching for a head of white hair. But Kaneki wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Hide felt his heart sink a little bit. Why, though? He wasn’t so sure. _You’re crushing on him_ , Touka had said. Was he? Really? No way. He just wanted to get to know Kaneki better, maybe even be his friend… Right?

 

Waving the confusing thoughts away for the moment, Hide got himself to focus on what he needed to do right now: taking a huge shit. He hurried into the men’s room a little ways away from the stairs and locked himself into one of the stalls on the far end. He wasn’t exactly a stickler for super-clean toilets, but this wasn’t so bad. When he’d flushed the toilet and pulled up his pants, he heard people coming in. One hand on the door to push it open, he froze when the click of the restroom door locking echoed across the room. What the—

 

“You’ve been _distracted_ , haven’t you, _mon cher_?”

 

“I don’t know… ah… what you’re talking about…”

 

Hide’s jaw dropped and he struggled to close it and keep from shrieking. It went without saying who was out there having another tongue tango. He dropped to his hands and knees slowly and peeked beneath the stalls to see two pairs of legs from the waist down—one in white, the other in black.

 

“Oh, my,” Sir Flashy drawled, “but you know very well what I’m talking about.”

 

“Tsukiyama, I’m serious,” Kaneki gasped. “I haven’t been distracted by… anything.”

 

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Sir Flashy—Tsukiyama whispered, his hands wandering down to where Hide saw them rest on Kaneki’s ass. “And did I not tell you to call me by my name, Ken?”

 

“Tsu—Shuu, I’m not lying, I—ah…!” Kaneki was cut off by another kiss. He sounded perfectly calm despite what Hide imagined was happening to him. But… Hide _knew_ that was an act. He knew Kaneki was only smothering his real emotions. He could see it. Tsukiyama couldn’t. Hide, and _only_ Hide, could see what Kaneki really wanted. That alone gave him the strength to stand up and move to open the door of his stall.

 

“ _How_ can I know, Ken?” Tsukiyama murmured, pleading. “Won’t you tell me? Won’t you tell me”—another kiss—“how you can show me?”

 

“That’s… easy,” Kaneki said breathlessly. When Hide heard the next kiss, he wasn’t so sure Tsukiyama initiated it this time. “Fuck me. Right here and now. Then you’ll know. You’ll know that all I’ve been thinking about is _you_.”

 

“Is that so?” Tsukiyama chuckled darkly. “You know that alone can’t satisfy me, _mon cher_ …”

 

“Then hurt me,” Kaneki hissed. Hide felt himself go rigid. “Tie me up. Tear me apart. Do what you _want_. You don’t even have to put me back together. You know that.”

 

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Tsukiyama’s voice was dripping with desire and triumph as he kissed Kaneki again. It made Hide sick. “But…”

 

“But?”

 

“But not here, not yet. This filthy room is not where I will reward you… Not when there are so _many_ things I know you want done.”

 

“Shuu—”

 

“Hush. I promise you, I will not disappoint tonight. You passed, after all, and I love you all the more for that.”

 

“Shuu.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I… I’ll catch up.”

 

“I know you will, _mon cher._ ”

 

The door unlocked and opened. Tsukiyama was gone. Kaneki was alone. Hide still couldn’t bring himself to move. Not when Kaneki started up one of the faucets and let out a single, heartbreaking sob as the water ran noisily. Not when Kaneki took a deep, shuddering breath to calm himself down. Not when Kaneki left to catch up with Shuu Tsukiyama.

 

 _Yeah, you better run_ , Dad had screamed at Hide as he left home. _You shitty coward!_ He’d been right.

 

Kaneki was a coward too, but he was a coward who didn’t run. Hide was one who did. The difference was so stark, so stupid, so _there_ ,that Hide laughed at it bitterly, letting his head fall heavily against the stall door. It throbbed where it hit—a reminder of what had happened at home.

 

For the first time in a long while, Hide wished he could remember how to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking back, there were a lot of faucets, sinks, hand- and face-washing in this chapter. I think my brain is trying to tell me something.  
> I literally stopped writing this for six hours to play Tekken. It took me 14 tries (and a lot of swearing) to beat Jun Kazama with Forest Law. Yeah, I’m shit at Tekken.
> 
> Thanks for reading and see you next chappie!


	4. Knowing My Weakness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUUUUUU  
> I wrote this chapter /fast/ because you guys are the best~! (also may not happen again, I warn you, I was in the writer's equivalent of an athlete's Zone.)  
> Hey, Ayato’s here! Because you know by now that I love a world where the Kirishima sibs are together and Touka can actually taste Yoriko’s cooking. The things that go on between Hide and Touka plus Hide and his mom here are just fucking crucial bc all my feelings and headcanon about Hide, his intentions, and his imperfections are just RELEASED in indirect references to canon so yay feelsy dialogue~  
> Note that I accidentally mixed up Irimi’s names last time so pls don’t get confused.  
> Things idrk about in this chap: 1) at what age Japs can drive, and 2) J-Pop outside anime music. Meh. It's just a fic anyway, right? EEP *hides from angry mob*

Hide wasn’t sure when he woke up, but when he did, he had a bad headache. He groaned and sat up, touching his head gingerly, balking slightly at the new bandages circling it and the two Band-Aids on his left cheek.

 

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty.” Ayato was at the door, dressed in what was obviously his work uniform and looking like someone had pissed in his meal, as usual. “Touka’s got breakfast.”

 

“Usually it’s Touka _made_ breakfast, right?” Hide said, mustering a 7AM grin for Ayato as he got up. He was typically a morning person, but possible concussions made typical things void sometimes.

 

Ayato scowled. “Well, if I said her _girlfriend_ made breakfast, she’d kick my a—”

 

“ _Ayato_ , what kind of shit are you saying first thing?” Touka punched her little brother in the arm and he shouldered her in reply. She grimaced and stuck her tongue out at him. “She’s not my girlfriend,” she said pointedly. Ayato was taller than her now, and was looking more and more like a man. Hide thought that was cool but Touka sure didn’t. Ayato was starting to get more of that “rebellious teen” in his system than she liked. Touka put a hand on her hip and looked at Hide expectantly. “You hungry or what?”

 

“I can eat,” he replied, swooning and putting the back of his hand to his forehead. “You might have to feed me tho—”

 

“Don’t push it, dweeb,” she said bluntly, turning around and walking out of the bedroom. Ayato glanced at Hide before following his sister.

 

“Yeah, that’s great,” Hide grumbled. “Leave the guy with the head injury alone to fix the futon and fend for himself. Thanks guys. You’re the best.”

 

“Your miso’s getting cold,” Touka called from the other room. “I’m gonna eat it.”

 

Miso? Miso was not something to miss. Especially not Yoriko’s. Hide scrambled to his feet and made a beeline for the kitchen where Touka stood, thermos and filled bowl in hand. She handed it and a pair of chopsticks to him and pointed to the small plate of croquettes sitting next to a bowl of rice on the counter. Ayato was already putting away his share in front of the TV, to the tune of early morning anime.

 

“Do you have class on Saturdays?” Touka asked Hide.

 

“Nope, thank God,” he replied, mumbling thanks for his breakfast. “I have a morning and afternoon shift at Anteiku though. Do you have maid duties today too?”

 

That earned him a handful of breadcrumbs in the face. “Yeah, I do,” she said. “From 8 all the way until 5 PM. God.”

 

“And Ayato?”

 

“His job starts an hour after mine, but it’s two districts over, so we still leave around the same time.”

 

Hide nodded, taking generous bites of his croquettes and thanking the gods above for Yoriko Kosaka’s talented hands. Ever since Yoriko had started making way more food for Touka and Ayato than they could finish, Hide had been the next lucky guy to join the club. He’d never met Yoriko in the flesh, but he always wanted to, if only to kneel at her feet and praise her as the new goddess of the kitchen.

 

“Are you going home after work?”

 

Hide turned to Touka, the sound of the TV dulling in his ears. She had her back to him and she was already washing her used bowl. He unconsciously brought his fingers up to the bandages on his head and smiled sadly.

 

“You know I have to.”

 

“No you don’t!” She put the bowl down hard. It hit the bottom of the sink with a loud bang. “Nobody’s _making_ you stay there, Hide.”

 

“I can’t stay anywhere else.”

 

“You can stay here.” Touka was looking at him now. She looked angrier than ever, her fists balled at her sides and her knuckles white. “Quit being such an asswipe”—Hide winced at that—“and leave that hellhole you call a house already!”

 

“I can’t.”

 

“Why the fuck not?”

 

“Because I’m a coward like that, Touka,” he said levelly, meeting her eyes and replaying in his mind every single time Dad had gone nuts at home. “I can’t leave them alone because they’re my parents. That’s how I am, Touka. I can’t _not_ care, even if I really hate what’s happening. Even if I know I can’t really do anything about it. I pretend I can’t see what’s going on so I can deal with it, okay? That’s the only way I can help them.”

 

“That’s stupid,” Touka snapped. “That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say and that’s saying something. You’re making up shitty excuses to stay and act like the fucking _victim_ again. I _hate_ it when you do that, Hide. I hate it.”

 

They watched each other wordlessly, in a silence so brittle it would break if either of them so much as breathed. Without warning, Ayato ducked between them to drop his bowl into the sink. He looked from Hide to Touka and held up a hand.

 

“Well, I’m just gonna go,” he said, taking a long, deliberate step out of the kitchen, passing between them again. “Hope you fix this… whatever-it-is. Tell your girlfriend thanks for the meal, sis.” He left then, but Hide and Touka were still staring each other down, waiting for the other to give in. To break.

 

Hide broke. “I hate it, too,” he said quietly. He placed his chopsticks on his empty bowl. “But I can’t change things the way I am now. Maybe I’ll never be able to change things.”

 

“You could if you just _left_. Ayato and I have plenty of room here. Dad only comes home for Christmas and New Year anyway.”

 

“I told you, I _can’t_ ,” Hide wrung his hands. “I can’t leave them alone.”

 

“The same way you can’t leave Kaneki alone?” Touka sneered.

 

“That’s… different.”

 

“There you go again—what was that word, dammit— _compartmentalizing_ everything. Some things are the same, Hide. You treat everything and everyone the same way, like you can’t impose and you can’t ignore and you can’t abandon them. It’s not a bad thing, I guess, but you never think about _yourself_ either! Hide, your dad is going to _kill_ you. He said he was going to buy a fucking _rifle_ to shoot your head off. Stop acting like a philosophical moron and get your shit together! You’re going to _die_ if you stay there!” Touka stopped, though she looked like she had a lot more to say but didn’t have enough breath left in her to say it.

 

But Hide already knew everything she was going to say. He knew all that because he’d been thinking it himself. He _knew._

 

“Then maybe I want to die helping the people I care about.”

 

Before he knew what he was doing or where he was going, he was gone and the Kirishima residence was two street corners behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re looking rather blue this morning,” Irimi told Hide as he swept the floor—his new morning side-job while waiting for Kaneki. “Did something happen to your head?”

 

He looked up at her and pointed at his bandages. “Oh, what, this? I just fell down the stairs last night ‘cause I was sneaking down to the kitchen for some snacks. My mom was _so_ mad. She never really gets mad, so I guess I’m just kinda shell-shocked.”

 

Irimi laughed. It was a pretty sound. No wonder Hina said Koma never used to shut up about her. “You’re more of a klutz than you let on,” she said idly, adjusting the last of the little signs in the display cases. “Do you know how to cook?”

 

“Huh? Why?”

 

“It’s the way you carry yourself in the kitchen when you talk to the manager every morning,” she said smilingly. “You know where you’re going.”

 

“Oh. Well, yeah, I cook for my parents at home usually. Dad always says I do it better than Mom does.” It wasn’t a lie. He did say that, but it was only to spite Mom, really.

 

“How sweet.” She was still smiling at him, but then her eyes fell to the computer that handled all the Anteiku transactions. “I never cooked at home when my parents were around, but it’s easy for me to do that here. I suppose I never felt comfortable doing it for them or people I know. Never figured out why, though.”

 

“It makes sense, I mean—” Hide’s eyes widened and he held up both hands. “I might cross some line here—But maybe you’re scared of their judgment?”

 

Her eyes flicked up at him. “Judgment?”

 

Hide shrugged. “Yeah, it’s pretty common. Lots of people who love singing or performing or even sports can’t do it in front of their family or their friends. It’s easier for them when they don’t know anybody in the audience. Getting criticized by people you don’t know is easier to shrug off since you don’t feel any attachment to them.”

 

She seemed to think that over. “That makes sense,” she echoed him. “Hey, thanks. I’m really sorry, but I thought you were joking when you said that you were from Kamii. I was wrong. You’re a brainy one, aren’t you?”

 

He beamed. “I try to be.”

 

“You know…” Irimi leaned over the counter, her kind smile turning conspiratorial. “I overheard something interesting the other day…” She beckoned him closer. Raising his eyebrows, Hide walked over to her and bent down so she could whisper in his ear. “I heard,” she murmured, “that the manager studies in Kamii.”

 

Hide jumped away from her like he’d been scorched. “ _What?_ ” He knit his eyebrows together. “No, that can’t be. I would’ve seen him. And… hold on a minute, he’s in _college?_ Why’d he never say anything about it?”

 

Irimi straightened, pursing her lips. “Heard it from the horse’s mouth. Maybe you just never bumped into each other,” she said matter-of-factly. “Kamii’s pretty huge, isn’t it? It’s not unlikely.”

 

He still couldn’t believe it. Kaneki… in _Kamii?_ It was by far the weirdest thing to imagine. No. It was way too far-fetched to be true. “Then how come he’s the manager of Anteiku?” he asked dubiously. “He wouldn’t have enough time to handle school _and_ a full-time job.”

 

“Yoshimura takes care of the shop when he isn’t around,” she said. “The manager actually isn’t here as often as you think he is. In fact, I don’t think he ever really used to come in as early and as much as he does these days—even to do Koma’s job—ever since you came in. Usually he’s here only thrice a week to see how things are and bake a few batches, but so far he’s been here every day.”

 

That made Hide stop, rewind, and pause. _I don’t think he ever really used to come in as early as he does these days, ever since you came in_. The words made his head spin with countless possibilities, but there was one, only one, that he wanted to entertain. Kaneki wasn’t one to show his true feelings outright. He tucked them under a carpet and sat on them, ignoring anybody who pointed at the lump underneath him. He thought they were a weakness that could be exploited. So he hid them. But he couldn’t completely keep them hidden forever.

 

As if on cue, the door swung open to reveal Anteiku’s manager, looking sleepy as usual. He nodded to Irimi and, the moment he saw Hide, brightened considerably. Still no smile, but Hide thought it was enough. It was a still a glimmer of hope, as far as he was concerned.

 

“Good morning,” Kaneki greeted him cordially.

 

“G’morning, Kaneki!” Hide said happily. “You coming with today?”

 

“Yeah. Just give me a minute to fix something in the back.”

 

“Sure.”

 

He watched with a dopey grin as Kaneki disappeared into the Anteiku staff room next to the kitchen. His heart was still fluttering from the way Kaneki’s face had lit up when their eyes had met. For a few seconds, he totally (and gladly) forgot about a certain Sir Flashy and what had very nearly transpired in the men’s toilet in the basement of a Roppongi club.

 

Irimi whistled. “You’ve got it bad, huh?” she said, her smile now a playful one.

 

Hide looked over at her and laughed. “You have _no_ idea.”

 

 

He’d had a girlfriend before. Just one in his last year of middle school. He couldn’t remember her name anymore, but he remembered how he’d felt happy just being next to her, talking to her, holding her hand. This was nothing compared to how happy sitting next to Kaneki in a small delivery truck was making him. It was almost ridiculously unreal how his insides felt like they’d turned into floating marshmallows. Whenever he tried to stop and explain the feeling to himself, words (and the entire world) would stop making sense and he’d just call it “that float-y, fluffy feeling where you can’t feel your legs”—which was probably dangerous since he was driving and all.

 

But of course, he couldn’t just _ignore_ the alarm bells going off in the overly analytical half of his brain. There were just so many things _wrong_ with having a crush on Ken Kaneki that it might have bowled Hide over if he hadn’t already gone through every single one of them before he’d accepted his feelings. The foremost thing was obvious: Kaneki already had a boyfriend. This was a hurdle Hide thought was a bit too high to jump over without taking several steps back to gain some momentum. He needed to do this right, and do it in one shot. He needed a solid plan and for that, he needed to know exactly who (or what) he was dealing with. The answer? Some digging on Shuu Tsukiyama’s name.

 

Did he like Kaneki enough to do that? He still wasn’t sure. Too many things were getting jumbled up in his head for him to calmly assess his heart. So he decided to go on auto-pilot for now, which mostly meant grinning like an idiot, laughing like an idiot, making idiotic jokes, and saying idiotic things. Basically his everyday, sparkly personality, but multiplied by a thousand. And it made him happy. It really did.

 

“… so then I said, ‘Take the box, you’re gonna need it!’ And he did! Can you believe that?”

 

Kaneki laughed—a soft laugh, barely more than a breath. “I knew it,” he said. “You _can_ be rude when you want to be.”

 

“Kaneki,” Hide whispered. “Do that again.”

 

Anteiku’s manager fixed him with a stare that was neither hot nor cold. Lukewarm, at best. “Do what again?”

 

“That. Laugh.”

 

Kaneki couldn’t hide the bewilderment on his face, and with it being such a change of pace in his expressions, Hide laughed out loud. “I can’t do that again,” Kaneki told him. “It’s a spur of the moment kind of thing. You don’t plan it. It just happens.”

 

“Then… Smile, maybe? That doesn’t just happen, right?” Hide tried for a begging-puppy-dog look.

 

Struggling now to look disinterested, Kaneki turned away and focused on the road. “What for? There’s nothing to smile about.”

 

“Are you trying to say that Hideyoshi Nagachika is nothing to smile about?” Hide shook his head. “That hurts, man. That hurts.”

 

“You’re exaggerating.”

 

“ _Oh_ , I think I’m gonna _die_ from all this heartache,” he moaned, clutching his chest with one hand. “You’ve taken away all my reason to live, woe is me!”

 

Kaneki’s eyebrows furrowed together. “Now you’re just being silly.”

 

“What horrible misfortune hath befallen me! I, Hide of the Nagachika, have been deemed unworthy of the rare smile of Ken Kaneki, purveyor of old man words such as ‘silly.’ I might as well vanish from this world…”

 

“Hide, the road…”

 

“Unworthy, unworthy! I am unworthy!”

 

“Hide, _the road_!”

 

“Wh—oh _shit_!” Hide grabbed the wheel with both hands and wrenched it to the right, swerving out of the way as a red Corolla barreled past them. Its driver stuck a hand out of his half-open window, middle finger in the air as he passed. Hide rolled down his window and yelled, “Yeah? Well, quit the counterflow, you d—”

 

“Hide, _we_ ’re counterflowing,” Kaneki said pointedly. “Get us back to the other side before we—Hide, the wheel! Turn it! Turn it now!”

 

Dropping back into his seat, Hide turned the wheel in a hurry, barely missing a gray Honda and getting back to the opposite side of the road. Thankfully, not a lot of people were driving this way and he didn’t have to worry about getting smacked from behind. He let out a breath and used a finger to loosen his collar.

 

“Phew, _that_ was a close one!” he said, laughing. “Hope we don’t run into some cops later, though. That was the shittiest driving I’ve ever done since my first lesson last year.”

 

“How can you _laugh_?” Kaneki demanded. When Hide glanced over at him, he had to swallow another bubble of laughter. The young manager was clutching the sides of his seat, sitting straight up and stiff as a board. His pale face had gone almost as white as his hair. “We almost _died_ , Hide, what were you thinking, not looking where you were going like that?”

 

“Guess I _did_ get a little carried away,” Hide said sheepishly. “I couldn’t focus because of you.” The moment he said it, he realized the gravity of what he’d blurted without thinking. He swallowed nervously. Could he swerve out of the way of this one, the same way he’d just done? Or had he just put himself on a one-way road to wrecking himself all over the pavement? He didn’t know. As usual, Kaneki had done a number on his mental process. He slid a fearful glance at Kaneki, grip tight on the wheel.

 

But Kaneki was still panicking too much to notice he’d said, much less his internal struggle. “If I hadn’t screamed at you, we seriously would have died,” he was saying. “ _And_ we would’ve lost the deliveries. Then who would do the deliveries? Irimi’s busy as it is. Yoshimura and Hina can’t drive. Koma’s _still_ in the hospital. We’d lose the contracts with at least ten restaurants and five cafés! Anteiku would be doomed.” He buried his face in his hands and whispered “doomed” maybe three more times before Hide found it in himself to react.

 

Knowing he was in the clear now, Hide laughed at Kaneki’s dire predictions. “Kaneki, chillax, bro, we’re fine,” he said, reaching over to pat his boss on the back. “We’re alive, we’re kicking. We’re _fine_. Anteiku is okay. It’s all going to be okay. Okay?”

 

It took a few minutes for Kaneki to calm down, and it was only when they’d gotten to their destination—their last stop, too—a French restaurant by the name of _Le Chat Blanc_ , that he sobered up to an alarming degree. It was like every single emotion Hide had seen in his face the whole day had been nothing but a dream and, just like that, Hide knew who had come home: Ghoul 20 Kaneki. The dark side of the moon.

 

“Kaneki…?” he probed hesitantly.

 

“Move.”

 

“What?”

 

“Didn’t you hear me?” Kaneki regarded him coldly. “Stop staring and get to the back. _Move_.”

 

“Okay, okay. Jeez, you’d think the world’s ass was on fire or something…” Hide fumbled, undoing his seatbelt, and got out of the truck with two hands up like he was at gunpoint. He looked back at Kaneki, but the latter was still watching him with a frosty stare. “I’m going, I’m going!” he whined, jogging over to the back and unlocking the doors. As he worked, he was able to bring up his mental Kaneki profile. Some of the items were ticked and the others were slashed out. New things were being added all the time. He looked for item number seven.

 

_Ken Kaneki possibly has two or more personalities._

 

Hide ticked it grudgingly. He knew one of them well enough. He’d fallen in love with that Kaneki (probably). Was it even possible to do that with the other Kaneki? What about the other _s?_

 

“Hide, what the hell are you doing back there? Hurry up!”

 

He sighed. “I’m getting there!” he called back half-heartedly.

 

The analytical half of his brain was laughing now. _Told you so_ , it said. _Told you crushing on Ken Kaneki was wrong. Did you listen? Noooo, of course you didn’t._ Hide hung his head as he pocketed the keys to the back of the truck and opened up the doors, revealing the last few wooden crates of bread for delivery. It would have been easy if he could just fall out of love and _not care_ about Kaneki. Other people could do it. Why couldn’t he? But it was impossible. Touka had called him out on that. He just couldn’t bring himself to leave behind people he cared genuinely about, even though he knew it was bound to end badly.

 

“This,” he mumbled as he jumped onto the truck and hefted one of the crates with both hands, “is going to be _way_ harder than I thought.”

 

* * *

 

 

Hide got home exhausted as hell and thanked all the Shinto gods above that Dad wasn’t home early today. He trudged into the kitchen, past his mother on the couch. He raised a hand in greeting, but she’d already frozen up since the sun went down. She would probably bolt up the stairs any minute now. That was okay. It was going to be a pain to bring the food up to her room and convince her he wasn’t Dad, but it was okay. It was better this way.

 

He bent down and opened a small closet door to get to the huge bag of rice that was always murder to drag into the house all by himself every time they ran out. He got out a few cups of rice into a bowl and used one foot to shut the little door while he left the bowl under a running faucet. He went through the fridge and pulled out a few vegetables and some meat. The cutting board was in one of the closets above the rice cooker. He grabbed it and a knife, washed them both and got to work on the curry.

 

Hide hummed as he worked. A song he’d heard on the radio by some band he’d never heard of before, but seemed pretty good. Galileo Galilei. Nothing intense like Rookiez or Man with a Mission. Just some chill music. He needed that now. His best friend was furious at him, he had less than a week left as a temp at work, his grades were dropping (a little), his dad was thinking of buying a gun, and his crush had multiple personality disorder. He needed a breather. Maybe he’d buy Galileo Galilei’s album next time he went to the music store. He hadn’t used his headphones lately. Then again, he only used them when he didn't want to hear the world anymore. A pick-me-up when he couldn’t just smile or laugh everything off anymore. A failsafe when he was at the edge.

 

In little more than an hour, he was covering Dad’s share with a roll of plastic and arranging Mom’s on a tray before he brought it up. Resting one end of the tray on his hip and holding the far end with one hand, he knocked on Mom’s door with the other.

 

“Mom? It’s me, Hide. Dinner’s ready.”

 

A muffled shriek came from the other side. “Go away! I… I have a bat! I’ll use it!”

 

“Mom. Calm down. It’s just me. Dad isn’t home yet.”

 

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

 

 _How do I know you’re telling the truth?_ Hide wrinkled his nose as unwanted memories sprung up at the words. _How can I know, Ken? Won’t you tell me?_

 

“You don’t,” he said. “But Dad never comes up here.”

 

“What if he did?”

 

“He would go to my room first. You’d hear the gun before he got here and you know how slow he is. You could run.”

 

There was a long silence before the door unlocked and creaked open. Mom peeked outside, tense until she saw that Hide had been telling the truth. She glanced around, making sure that he was well and truly alone before reaching her hands out for the tray. He passed it to her and she brought it inside, lowering it to the floor and turning to Hide with something in her wild eyes shifting.

 

“Oh, dear… Come here, Hide.” She held out her arms.

 

He raised his eyebrows. This was… different. He walked forward tentatively and she enfolded him in a warm, tight embrace. He felt a dull ache behind his eyes. Was he trying to cry? He pressed his face into her shoulder and felt his knees go weak.

 

“M-Mom,” he stammered softly. “Mom, I…”

 

“Shh… Shh…” She stroked his hair with a gentle hand he’d missed for so long. “My dear sweet Hide… I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…”

 

“No, Mom, _I_ should be sorry.” He pulled away from her. “I’m not strong enough to fix any of this. I can’t fix us. I can’t even run away.”

 

“Hide, my dear son,” she said, tugging him back into her arms. “You _are_ strong. Stronger than us both. You may not be strong enough to leave us, but you are strong enough to be here, always. People will call you weak, but you are not. When you love, Hide”—she placed a hand on his chest and smiled at him—“I know you are like sunshine. You only ever give others life and warmth.”

 

“Mom…”

 

The door slammed open downstairs, making them both jump. Hide’s head snapped up and he saw the light in Mom’s eyes vanish, replaced by that feral fear that he’d known for years. She leapt away from him and hurried into her room, closing the door and locking it.

 

He stood there, watching the door, for a long time. A few bottles broke downstairs. He brushed his fingers against the wood. Dad cursed and belched loudly, mumbling something about pay-per-view. Hide closed his eyes and wondered if he’d ever again experience what had just happened. Another bottle smashed on the floor.

 

He probably wouldn’t, but Mom’s words stuck in his heart. Sighing, he walked down the hall to his room. He fished out his phone. To be honest, he didn’t know who he was calling until the other end picked up.

 

“ _Hide?_ ” Kaneki whispered into his ear. “What are you doing? I told you never to call me on this phone! This better be about Anteiku or I’m hanging up.”

 

Hide’s heart leapt to his throat at the sound of Kaneki’s voice. He didn’t even know why he’d called Kaneki. He just wanted to know he wasn’t alone tonight. He could’ve called Touka and apologized but for some reason, here he was, phoning his split-personality boss at 10PM.

 

“Can… Can I see you?” he choked out and mentally slapped himself. _Smooth, Hide_ , he thought to himself sarcastically. _Real smooth_. A million pick-up lines in the world and he chose the one that was a sub-type in the Lame-Ass category.

 

There was a pause. “Right now?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Another pause. A long one. “Okay.”

 

Hide’s tongue and insides were both in knots. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious. “Where?”

 

“I’m in Shibuya right now, but I guess I could go back a bit early. We could meet in the park across Anteiku in half an hour. Is that fine with you?”

 

“It’s fine,” he said. _More than fine, really. Awesome, actually_. “See you then?”

 

“See you then.”

 

When Kaneki hung up, Hide slid to the floor, his heart pounding in his chest so hard he could feel it in his bones. He stared straight into the darkness until his heartbeat slowed to a tolerable point. He lowered his gaze to where the moonlight filtering in from his shuttered window hit the floor. He could practically hear Irimi’s voice going, _You’ve got it bad, huh?_

 

Ohohoho. It wasn’t even just a crush anymore. Hide threw his head back and couldn’t help laughing because the realization itself was making him lightheaded with happiness.

 

He was _definitely_ in love with Ken Kaneki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Galileo Galilei and Man With a Mission are my favorite Japanese bands /ever/, so excuse the shameless advertising.  
> Next chapter’s a big one, I can feel it.


	5. Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have great news and not-so great news.  
> The Great News: I have the plot 89% down now, so trust me when I say, I know where I’m going with this, I swear. I may have had some doubts along the way, but it’s all good now. I figured everything out that needs figuring out except for the ending. That’s the last 11%. XD  
> The Not-So Great News: I have no idea how you guys will take the developments I’ve planned. Eh. Personally, I am just trying my damnedest to get Hide and Kaneki on a bed where nobody will fuckin’ bother them. ;)

Shimmying down the tree right in front of his window growing from the backyard was faster and easier than before, which was only to be expected. His arms and legs were much longer than when he’d last climbed down the old thing. He made sure to be absolutely quiet, however, what with the glass sliding door to their living room right there—the TV screen with only one thing on twenty four-seven: the Nagachika household drama.

 

Tonight’s episode had Dad red-faced and wandering around the kitchen, rummaging through the different cupboards and closets. Hide watched and waited for him to turn his back to the living room. When he saw his chance, he bolted across the small lawn to the narrow walkway leading to the front of the house. As soon as he made it, he muttered a tiny “Yes!” under his breath, grinning triumphantly. He looked around to confirm nobody was watching him sneak out of his own house before setting off down the road in his socks, his head ducked, his shoulders hunched, and his hands deep in his jacket pockets.

 

It was hard not to look back longingly for his bike, but he’d left it by his shoes at the door like usual. It would have been impossible to get it without being noticed.

 

“Exercise, exercise,” he mumbled to himself. “Lose all the weight Lady Yoriko of the Kitchen is giving you.”

 

It took much longer than usual to get to the park fronting Anteiku, but the walk was worth it. Feeling the cool pavement through his socks and breathing in the spring night air were definitely doing wonders to his heavy mood. He arrived at the park at exactly 10:31, and allowed himself a second or two to wonder if Kaneki was one to nitpick about getting there on time.

 

He found a little playground for kindergarteners and, without thinking, jumped up onto the box-shaped jungle gym. He clambered up to the top and made himself comfortable with his legs dangling over the edge. He glanced at the digital clock on the cover of his phone. 10:37.

 

How far away was Shibuya by train? Hide wasn’t entirely sure, but it took him around twenty to thirty minutes by car to get there. Going by train was sure to be at least ten to fifteen minutes longer than that. He had lots of time to kill. Flipping open his phone, he decided to play some Tetris to while away the minutes.

 

He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until something was nudging his shoulder. He frowned and sat up, his body stiff and aching. “Damn,” he murmured, rubbing his shoulders. “That’s sore.”

 

“I’m sorry, I got here a lot later than I thought I would.”

 

Hide snapped awake. He looked down to see Kaneki standing at the foot of the jungle gym with an apologetic expression. Hide’s disconnected thoughts were abruptly flooded with one thing, over and over. _I’m in love with Ken Kaneki_ , he thought, the force of the words nearly knocking him over.

 

“Oh, K-Kaneki, _hi_ , didn’t see you there,” he stuttered awkwardly, face burning. _Shit, I’m acting like an idiot! Stop it, Hide, act smooth. Be smooth. You can do this. C’mon._ “So. Uh, fancy seeing you here.”

 

Kaneki looked at him, puzzled. “Ye-es…? But _you_ called me here, though,” he pointed out.

 

“No, I mean, yeah, I know I called you here, but I was—I meant _here_ here at this here, um, jungle gym.” Hide wanted to kick himself. This was _not_ working.

 

“Uh huh…” Kaneki said slowly. “Did you call me out here to say that? Because I think I’m just going to go home—”

 

“No, no, no!” Hide pushed himself up. “I—Wait right there—Don’t move—I got this—”

 

“Hide, you’re going to fa—”

 

“WHOA!” His sock-covered foot slipped off the edge and he fell spectacularly, flapping his arms around like a chicken held up by its legs. He landed on his side, with a quiet “oompf” as the air was forced out of his lungs.

 

“Hide!” Kaneki was next to him in an instant, helping him up to a sitting position. “Are you okay?”

 

Hide opened his eyes to Kaneki’s face inches away from his. They’d been this close before, especially when they were poring over the contents of the day’s list of deliveries together. But that was completely different from _this_. Hide was immediately caught by Kaneki’s eyes—just like when they’d first met and yet unlike it too. There was nothing dangerous about these gray eyes. They were just beautiful, shining like polished crystal in the moonlight. From where he lay, Hide could just make out the tiniest flecks of green and blue in the gray. Then when his gaze wandered, he found himself admiring the shape of Kaneki’s face. It was so… delicate. Not in a girly way but… It _had_ to be illegal for a guy to have a jawline like that. And then there was Kaneki’s stark white hair _sparkling_ with starlight (in light-polluted Tokyo, too). It was all Hide could do not to just reach up and pull that angelic face to his. God. This was torture.

 

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” he managed to say. He sat up and Kaneki pulled away from him. He lamented the distance between them, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet anyway. “Thanks.”

 

“No problem.”

 

They sat on the grass in awkward silence for a few minutes as Hide’s mind raced to come up with reasons why he’d called Kaneki out so randomly. Unfortunately, he discarded ideas faster than they came to him so he ended up with nothing after trying so hard. In the end, it was Kaneki who spoke up first.

 

“Is this about me,” he said, looking characteristically grave, “or is this about you?”

 

 _This is about_ us _,_ thought Hide miserably. _But I can’t say that. Yet._ “Um, it’s… both?”

 

“Both?”

 

“Yeah. I want to know…” He trailed off, trying to think fast. “I want to know if you go to Kamii,” he ended up blurting. Well, he _did_ want to know…

 

Kaneki looked taken aback by the question, like it had been one he least expected. “Yes, I do,” he said, when he’d recollected himself.

 

“What? Seriously?” Suddenly a slew of questions were on the tip of Hide’s tongue, itching to jump out of his mouth. He let them. “Why didn’t you say anything when you read my resumé? Why haven’t I seen you all year? What department are you in anyway? Are you a freshman? Wh—”

 

“Hold on,” Kaneki said hastily. “I’ll answer everything, so can we do this a bit slowly?”

 

Hide paused but nodded, gesturing for him to go ahead.

 

“Yes, I study in Kamii,” he said. “I didn’t say anything because you never asked. You haven’t seen me because I was suspended the entire first semester. I’m in the Arts department. Japanese Lit. And, yes, I’m a freshman.”

 

“ _Suspended?_ ” Hide balked. “First sem of your first year and you got suspended? What for?”

 

Kaneki’s face darkened. He looked away from Hide, his fingers briefly rubbing his chin. “I don’t really want to talk about that with you.”

 

That stung, but it reminded Hide of his place in Kaneki’s heart. He couldn’t jump the gun here. He had to be careful. If he wasn’t, he’d destroy whatever little they already had. “Oookay,” he ceded. “But it’s halfway into second sem. I haven’t seen you. Hell, I haven’t even _heard_ of you. And I’m like the eye of the Kamii gossip storm, man.”

 

Kaneki pursed his lips. “I stay inside the Arts department all the time,” he said. “I stick to one or two classrooms, really. The faculty…” He scowled. “Let’s just say they don’t like me walking around. They don’t like rumors about me either, so they pressure the Arts people to keep quiet.”

 

This wasn’t making any sense. “Do you want to tell me why?”

 

“No,” he said firmly.

 

“Fine.” This wasn’t making any sense _and_ Kaneki was being all secretive about it. Something fishy was going on in Kamii, and Hide made a high-priority mental note to find out. “So, Japanese Lit, huh? I’m in International Studies. But you know that.”

 

“We aren’t that far from each other,” Kaneki said, nodding.

 

“Yeah, last week, I had to paint a few banana trees for the Theatrical Arts people. It was a _huge_ pain in the ass, but they’ll be glad to know that five of their banana trees are going to look _fabulous_ come opening night.”

 

Kaneki laughed, and Hide relished the sound while he could. “I heard about that play,” he said. “It’s two months from now, right?”

 

“Yep—Oh, _hey_ , I just had the best idea!”

 

“Which is?”

 

“Why don’t we”— Hide pointed from Kaneki to himself—“watch it on opening night?”

 

“Us?” Kaneki repeated the motion, pointing from Hide to himself.

 

“Yeah!” Hide said cheerily. “Just the two of us. If I’m not mistaken, it’s on the 13th of June… It’ll be the second month birthday of my beautiful trees, so we have to go. No questions asked.” It would also be the second month since they’d first met, but Hide wasn’t about to let Kaneki think he was a stupid sap _now_.

 

“Oh… kay?” Kaneki looked torn between being totally weirded out and being extremely amused. Hide couldn’t blame him. He couldn’t understand half of what he was saying. “But aren’t the tickets pricey? The TA plays aren’t exactly cheap, I heard.”

 

Hide winked at him. “Leave it to me,” he said. “I’m the most likeable guy on campus. They can’t say no. Plus I painted their trees. They _owe_ me seven hours of my life. Divide that by two and that’s how long the play’s likely gonna be. So if I say that, they’ve got no choice but to give me _two_ free tickets.”

 

“That… is the worst logic I have ever heard. Are you sure you’re in Kamii?”

 

“Ouch,” he said, pouting. “I practically live in that school.”

 

“Sorry,” Kaneki said, though it was obvious he didn’t mean it. “Is it my turn to ask questions?”

 

“Fire away.”

 

“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

 

Hide snorted a laugh. “ _That_ ’s your first question?”

 

“That’s not an answer.”

 

“It’s… a little hard to explain.” He paused, and then lay down on his back, cradling his head with his palms. He looked over at Kaneki, silently asking him to do the same. “I might not even directly answer your question.”

 

“It’s alright,” said Kaneki, settling down beside him. “I’m listening.”

 

“I’ve… It’s just… I have _never_ told anyone my whole life story,” he continued uneasily. “Not even Touka. So… I don’t think I can tell you everything right now. But I’ll try.” He held his breath, and when Kaneki nodded slowly, he went on and explained his situation as briefly as he could.

 

“Lately though, I’ve been getting this bad feeling like things are getting worse. I dunno.” He frowned a little, sighing. “Maybe I’m overthinking it.” After a long pause, Hide started. “Oh! Right, my socks,” he said abruptly, laughing. “Well, thing is, I called you after my mom talked to me for the first time in… five years? It was really something… Anyway, my dad was downstairs, and I couldn’t just zoom past him without getting my head split in two, so I climbed down from my room using this tree in our backyard. I couldn’t go back for my shoes or my bike up front because I figured Dad would hear me if I did. I didn’t want to risk not making it to you tonight.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“What? No, Kaneki, you are not apologizing for me leaving my shoes.” Hide clicked his tongue and wagged a finger at Kaneki. “Besides, my rainbow socks are always a pleasure to see in action.” He raised his feet, wiggling his multicolored toes in the dim light.

 

Kaneki laughed again. It was a sound a thousand times prettier than Irimi’s laugh. _No offense_ , he thought to Irimi, wherever she was. “I was trying to _sympathize_ ,” Kaneki said, a smile tugging very slightly at the corners of his mouth before fading. “But I really am sorry. I had no idea…”

 

Hide cast him a stern look. “Don’t be sorry, Kaneki. It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“No,” he said with an adamant shake of his head. “I treated you unfairly when we first met, even though you were going through so much.”

 

“Nah, you weren’t _that_ bad. Just made me hate you a bit, that’s all.”

 

“See? I was horrible. I don’t know why, but I only act this _weird_ with you. Like…” He twiddled his thumbs. “I want to be mean to you one minute, then I just can’t. I’m not… normally like that.” With a heavy sigh, he grimaced. “I can’t figure it out. I’m a mess when I’m with you. I mean, I’m pretty messed up as it is, but with you, it’s like it gets so much _worse_. Like I’m a totally other _me_ I’ve never met before.”

 

“There are so many things that made me want to ask you just now,” Hide said quietly, propping himself up on one elbow.

 

When Kaneki looked at him, Hide could’ve sworn the white-haired youth was holding his breath. “Like what?”

 

“Like, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Because, frankly, I still don’t know if I’m on your good side or your bad side yet.”

 

Kaneki turned his gaze back up to the sky. “I don’t know,” he said finally. His answer made Hide’s heart sink to his stomach. “Like I said, I’m pretty messed up. I… I don’t know what exactly my ‘good’ side and my ‘bad’ side are.”

 

Hide swallowed. This was, he knew, yet another make it or break it moment. One of the many he’d already had with Kaneki. He always thought it was a little funny and scary how fragile their friendship was. Right now, it was bordering a bit on scary. “Maybe I can help you with that,” he said.

 

Their eyes met again. Kaneki was looking at him incredulously. “How?”

 

“Well… Have I seen both of them yet?”

 

“Both of them?” Kaneki looked appalled by the thought. “No. _No_. Definitely… No.”

 

That hurt, Hide had to admit. Kaneki didn’t trust him, which was fair enough. Some evil part of him was glad that he hadn’t told Kaneki his whole life story. That made them even, on some vague level. Still, he couldn’t deny that he was interested.

 

“Not even at Ghoul 20?” There. He’d said it. No going back now. This was the first time he’d ever brought up Kaneki’s _other_ life in conversation. Without any time to think about whether it was a good decision on his part, he almost jumped when Kaneki answered.

 

“No, not even at Ghoul 20,” he said, a cryptic and guarded tone to his words. “That was… That’s not the… other me I was talking about.”

 

“Then who _is_ the other you? Will I ever see him?”

 

The look Kaneki shot Hide wasn’t supposed to scare him or intimidate him. He knew that much and yet he still felt his blood run cold. It was a look that reflected the terror and doubt within Kaneki himself. Terror of what, Hide was starting to understand. Doubt? He had no idea. There were still so many things about Kaneki that he didn’t know, and the more answers he got, he only found himself faced with more questions.

 

Somehow, as the night wore on, they managed to steer away from uncomfortable topics and stuck to the safe zone. They left the park at close to three in the morning. Kaneki had walked him home part of the way, since he lived so nearby.

 

“I’ll see you on Monday?” Hide ventured. “At school, I mean?”

 

“Tomorrow, you mean,” Kaneki smirked. “And yeah. Maybe at school. That would be nice.”

 

Hide rocked back and forth on his feet, barely hiding his giddiness. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

 

“Good night, Hide.”

 

“You mean ‘good morning.’”

 

“Okay, _good morning_ , Hide,” Kaneki chuckled softly.

 

“Good morning, Kaneki,” Hide said, grinning. “See ya.”

 

They paused, both feeling a little awkward, both feeling as though there should be more to say. It was only when the sound of a car’s alarm shattered the early morning silence that they were both jolted out of their thoughts and waved goodbye to each other. Hide snuck into the back of his house and struggled up the tree to his open window, unable to wipe the stupid smile off of his face all the while because maybe, just maybe, he had a chance at Kaneki’s heart.

 

* * *

 

 

If anybody asked him how he wanted to spend an entire Sunday afternoon, Hide definitely would _not_ have listed “Googling Shuu Tsukiyama” as one of his top choices. Then again, life was nothing if not a cycle of weirdness and irony. That was how life found him on his one free day from Anteiku, sitting in the back of the Kamii Library and leeching off of the free Wi-Fi trying to find definitive articles on Shuu Tsukiyama.

 

Which there were no shortages of.

 

Shuu Tsukiyama was apparently a big name… to food-obsessed people. Owner of _Le Chat Blanc_ (“Huh, that explains a lot,” Hide grumbled.) among several other five- and four-star restaurants spread out across at least five districts, he was, without a doubt, loaded. Page after page after page on various sites, blogs, and columns featured his huge-ass mansion and estate outside Tokyo, his luxurious everyday life, and his “decadent” success story.

 

Reluctantly, Hide burned his way through several paragraphs of Shuu over the course of six to eight hours. If there was anything in life that could be considered pure torture, he thought at some vague point in time, this was it. After he was sure he’d gathered enough data, he packed up the ancient laptop he’d picked up at a garage sale seven months ago (for 5000 yen!) and made to leave.

 

Then he remembered someone who could very well help him in his quest to understand what exactly connected Tsukiyama to Kaneki.

 

 

“What do you mean, ‘tell you about Tsukiyama’?” Nishio scratched the inside of his ear with his pinky, looking irate. “Dude, I have, like, two papers to finish in thirty minutes. Can you not.”

 

“Look,” Hide said, trying to placate him, “it’ll only take a sec. Tell me what you know, and I won’t bother you and Kimi.”

 

“I _told_ you, Kimi isn’t—”

 

“Yeah, yeah, got it, she isn’t there, you’re doing living, breathing work; that’s not actually lipstick on your neck and your fly isn’t totally open. I get it. Now about Tsukiyama? Oh, and while you’re at it, could you tell me about how Kaneki’s connected to all of this?”

 

Nishio narrowed his eyes at him. “Have I ever told you how much I hate you sometimes?”

 

“At least once every time we meet, yeah.”

 

“ _Ugh_ , fine,” he relented, crossing his arms and leaning against the door of one of the Science department’s many little offices. He didn’t even bother pulling up his zipper. “So Kimi and I have been to our fair share of clubs and bars, unlike you. We’ve picked things up here and there, you know? One day we happened to hear that there was this really exclusive, members-only club in the works at Golden Gai. Some bigshot had apparently bought out a bunch of buildings and tore them down to build a place”—he raised both hands to add air quotes—“‘no one’s ever seen before.’ There was apparently this huge hype about it both under- and over-ground. I thought it was worth looking into a little, so after some digging, I came up with one name: Shuu Tsukiyama.

 

“That made us realize that, yeah, this was going to be _some_ place. The Tsukiyama’s have always been really flashy. Their son shouldn’t be any different, we thought. Kimi and I talked to a few more people. Got friendly with lots of them. Met Touka and got her in the game. The three of us, we got on Tsukiyama’s trail and found Ghoul 20. That was where we saw Kaneki.” Nishio paused to smile deviously at the memory. “The rumors about that guy—you wouldn’t _believe_ it. But there he was, bringing someone else home every night. And then, just when we were going to give up, there he was—Tsukiyama, I mean—in all his glittery, tailor-made shit, going up to Kaneki one night and _slapping_ him in the fucking face!” He cringed with a sour smile, like he was witnessing it all over again. “He said some shit about ‘being his’ or something like that. Whatever, I couldn’t really hear it, okay?” he said, in response to Hide’s annoyed look.

 

“Anyway, so like, Kaneki was apologizing and Tsukiyama went medieval on his mouth but then there was something about the whole scene… Something off. I realized it when we were on the way home, but little bitch Touka beat me to it. ‘They planned that,’ she said. ‘They fucking planned that shit.’ Seriously! I wondered, what sort of kink are these two into? Anyway, we saw that a couple more times, until Uta finally told us that it was something that happened at least once a week. He called them ‘funny lovers.’ What the hell of a fucking name, right? But that was how we figured, we could _use_ it to get into that new club. Stuff happened and we got Touka to ask you to join us that one time. There. Happy now?”

 

There was a little _too_ much information to be happy about, but Hide took it as it was. Now he knew, at least, why Touka had been a little too tight-lipped about what she knew. She’d figured out his feelings for Kaneki way before he had, and had only withheld the information out of concern for how he would react. She was blunt when she had to be, but she knew how to be incredibly considerate. Hide made a mental note to bring her back some Anteiku cake tonight as an apology before he went home.

 

“Hey, man, thanks,” he told Nishio. “I owe you for this.”

 

“Yeah, you do.” Nishio snorted. When Hide turned to leave, he said, “Hey, wait.”

 

“Mm?”

 

He frowned, seeming to struggle with his words. “Kimi, Touka, and I… We gave up on that club thing, okay? It’s… We decided it wasn’t worth it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Tsukiyama and Kaneki… They’re the real deal, you know? I mean, that weird, twisted kind of shit you only see in movies.”

 

Hide laughed. “What’s your point?”

 

“My point, dipshit,” Nishio growled, “is that you shouldn’t get involved with those people. They can stay on their side of the world. We can stay on ours.”

 

Nodding, Hide raised a hand in farewell. “Gotcha, thanks for the heads-up,” he said. “Catch ya later! Good luck with your Kimi project!”

 

Nishio’s loud “Fuck you!” was, somehow, worth it.

 

* * *

 

 

Touka and Ayato gladly accepted the apology cake, because who in their right mind would turn away a chocolate lava cake staring them in the face at seven in the evening? Hide said his “sorry” and Touka didn’t (typical of her), but the relieved look in her eyes was something he silently appreciated. Later, they found themselves feasting on Irimi’s genius creation while the TV blared on some random new game show. Hide was busy behind his old laptop, cradling it on his lap carefully as he went through his information on Tsukiyama.

 

“I’ve never seen you use that thing,” Touka pointed out. “Is it new?”

 

“New-ish,” he replied offhandedly. “Got it for 5000 bucks, can you believe it? This is the first time I’ve brought it out of my room, though, because I always feel like it’ll die any second.”

 

Ayato whistled. “Great deal for a mechanical failure in the making,” he said, shoveling cake into his mouth. “Shit, this is _good_.”

 

“I know, right?”

 

“Checking out the competition, huh?” Touka had sidled up to him, looking over at his screen with a glass of milk. They’d been avoiding the topic of their fight yesterday morning, and so far, they were doing a great job of it. At least until it would come up again, in the far-off future.

 

“Yeah, you kind of forgot to mention that I’m up against a multi-millionaire restaurant, club, and bar owner.”

 

“Ehhh,” Touka shrugged. “It wasn’t important when you were still trying to decide whether or not you were gay.”

 

Ayato choked loudly on his cake. “ _What_? Hide, what the fuck?”

 

Hide eyed him apologetically. “It happens, Ayato. It happens.” He stopped to rub his chin thoughtfully. “Then again, I’m still not a _hundred_ percent sure. Looking up that kind of thing still kinda makes my soul vomit, but…”

 

“Too much information, you bastard,” Ayato snapped. “The fact that you even _tried_ to look it up—fuck, man. That’s fucked up.”

 

“Can’t argue with that.”

 

“God, is _everyone_ around me turning gay?” he moaned. “First my sister, and now you—next it’ll be that guy Amon who lives downstairs.”

 

“Shut up, you idiot!” Touka said sharply. “Amon is a fucking cop. You don’t say that shit about cops.”

 

“Whatever. I’m going to bed to think about _girls_ like a fucking normal person. Good night, weirdos.” Ayato stood up to dump his dish and utensils in the sink before trudging into his bedroom and slamming the door.

 

After Ayato left, Touka sprawled out on the floor, her half-empty glass beside her head. “He’s just freaking out because he thinks Kaneki’s cute, too,” she said absently.

 

Hide coughed loudly. “Seriously?”

 

“Yeah. I found a pic of him and Tsukiyama on an article once and printed it out. Guess I left it lying around because I heard him muttering Kaneki’s name in his sleep like once or twice. Little creep. That photo is like, seven years old… Or he might have just gone through my cell phone like he always does. I took a couple shots a few months ago. Agh, whatever! I don’t care anymore.”

 

“Oh, well, that’s understanda—wait a sec, you _found a picture of Kaneki and Tsukiyama online?_ ” Hide almost dropped his laptop. “Where? I was looking all over the Internet for how they were connected and I came up with zilch after seven hours!”

 

“Uh huh,” she said, sitting up. “It was totally by accident, though, and it got taken down literally five seconds after I downloaded it. Hold on, I’ll get it.” She disappeared into her room and reappeared seconds later with a folded sheet of A4 in her hands. She passed it to Hide, who took it shakily. He glanced over at Touka, who was watching him with an expression he couldn’t read. He gulped and unfolded the paper.

 

The photo was near the top of the article, right beneath the title. It was a little grainy, but there was no denying that head of white hair. A young Kaneki sat on the steps outside what appeared to be a sunroom, facing slightly away from the camera as he addressed someone unseen behind him. On his left, another boy had been caught laughing at him. Hide knew without Touka telling him that it was a teenaged Shuu Tsukiyama. A middle-aged man stood on the steps on Kaneki’s right, with his arms crossed, smiling kindly at the boys.

 

Taking a deep breath, Hide steeled his will and began to read.

 

 

**_Tsukiyama Family’s Adopted Second Son Confirmed?_ **

 

_Rumors have always abounded concerning the eccentric billionaire family and their odd household collections. However, one of the most taboo of them all is the so-called adoption of a young, unnamed boy into the affluent family. Spoken only in whispers, this at first seemed to be a bit of gossip that would fade into unpopular legend. Today, it appears to have been all but confirmed by this incriminating photograph taken at the Tsukiyama residence in 2009. The couple never affirmed the allegations of their adoption, up until their untimely demise in the tragic Air France plane crash of 2012, leaving behind their 19-year old son, Shuu (left), to take over the estate. The fair-haired boy in the photo (middle) has not been named, and no authorities can claim to recognize him. Some theorists point to unknown family relatives, to illegitimate parents, or to even shadier origins. Shuu Tsukiyama himself has not made any comment on claims of his existence._

_Whatever the answer may be, the mystery will forever remain until brought to light—Who is this boy, and why does the Tsukiyama family so desperately want to hide him from the world?_

 

“Done?” Touka asked softly.

 

Hide read over the whole thing a few more times, forward and back, until his head started to swirl and he wanted to throw up. He pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed his eyes shut. He handed it back to Touka without looking at her.

 

“Yeah,” he forced himself to say. His mouth had gone dry. “Yeah. I’m done.”

 

Touka gingerly took the article back. “You okay?”

 

“Not really, no.”

 

She sighed. “I should have told you sooner.”

 

“It’s fine. I’m just—I don’t know how to—I…” He looked up at Touka helplessly, letting his hands fall to his sides, on the floor. “Do you think I still even have a shot at this? Do you think I even deserve it? I mean, I’ve been _possibly_ gay for barely even a week. Do you think I…?”

 

“Hey, Hide?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Shut up for a second and listen to yourself.” Touka looked at him, worry _slightly_ evident on her face. “Remember what you told me when I was all depressed about my chances with Yoriko? Do you remember that?”

 

“That thing about your insults, bad temper, and horribly targeted karate skills?”

 

“Yes, assclown. That. And also what came with it.”

 

Hide breathed out his nose. “Just be you,” he quoted himself. “It’ll all work out.”

 

“Yeah. Tell yourself that more often, okay?” She shoved him gently. “Don’t give up. You’ve still got a shot. Plus, I hate that Tsukiyama dick, rich kid or no. I’m here for you, so if you ever need me to beat his ass into submission, I’d be more than glad to.”

 

He thought it was a little ironic that their roles had been switched now, and that he was about to depend on a girl to fight his fights for a guy he was pining for. But that was how he and Touka were. Ironic. The least likely of best friends. Yet somehow, they’d crested highs and survived lows together through the years to end up here, where they sat in her living room, giving each other reassurance.

 

“Touka? You’re the best.”

 

She grinned. “I know. So are you just going to sit there or what?”

 

“What?”

 

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed his laptop, sneering at its weight. “We’re going to make a plan of attack, genius,” she said, a sly glint in her eyes. “This is how we’re both going to get our stupid crushes to notice us before summer gets here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hide gets home at around 7 at the earliest and 9 at the latest every day. His dad typically gets home around 10 at the very earliest, the next month at the very latest (it happens).  
> Well? How’d they do? So maybe you had a few questions answered??? I know I did.  
> Thanks again for all the lovely comments and all the support! You guys keep this thing going~  
> Next chappie’s in the works, and it has /so/much HideKane I almost died from the fluff overload. Hope you look forward to it! :D


	6. Getting It Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *deep, throaty voice from Tartarus* AND SO IT BEGINS  
> (also, look at all these shameless Ghoul name drops; everybody’s in the food business; im so sorry i cut down on the fluff but here have some make-outs and excessive touching instead)

Hide blinked at Touka, barely comprehending her question. “Uh, what?”

 

She sighed, punching him lightly in the arm as they made their way to Anteiku. Her school wasn’t too far-off and when Hide had mentioned where it was exactly, she declared that she wanted to see the place so he agreed (reluctantly) to stop by the Kirishima apartment to take her there. Ayato was still busy pretending he didn’t care about Kaneki, and had snapped that he was leaving for school early without them. Hide wasn’t altogether sure if Kaneki would take Touka’s sudden visit well, but it was too late to go back now.

 

“I _said_ , are you a top or a bottom? You know, gay sex roles?”

 

He winced. He’d been hoping she hadn’t meant _that_. Because _that_ was a pretty big problem. “I dunno,” he half-lied. “Besides, why would I tell _you_? You’re just going to make fun of me.”

 

“Bottom, huh,” Touka said, nodding sagely.

 

Hide flushed. “I never—That’s not—!” he spluttered. “What makes you so sure anyway?”

 

“I can sense these things,” she said simply. “You, Hide, are a bona fide bottom. I can tell.”

 

“What are _you_ then?” he shot at her.

 

She paused and raised her eyebrows at him like, _Really?_ and shook her head, quickening her pace and walking ahead of him. He jogged to catch up, holding his bike by its handles. “Yoriko,” Touka said when he finally caught up, “is everything a man could ask for. She can cook, she’s not stupid, she’s got a pretty face and a fucking _amazing_ body—don’t you dare ask how I know that. It’s a girl thing. Anyway, she’s like a godly wife sent down from heaven or something like that. Sometimes… Sometimes I wish I were a guy. It would’ve been so much simpler.” She glanced at him. “You’ve got it easy. Your man’s already batting on the same team as you.”

 

It was true, in retrospect, that Hide had it somewhat easier than Touka. At the very least, he didn’t have to explain to Kaneki why he wanted to hug him or kiss him or straddle him or… “Well, Yoriko hasn’t got a billionaire boyfriend,” he said, cutting off his own thoughts before his head got too hot in the morning.

 

“Touché. Guess we’re both up shit creek, aren’t we?”

 

“That we are, Touka. That we are.”

 

They reached Anteiku after several minutes and Hide could already feel his heart jumping around like crazy in his chest before he even chained his bike outside the entrance. The prospect of seeing Kaneki so early in the morning wasn’t something new, but the feeling of it today was different somehow. Was it because of what had happened the other night? Was he going to be this nervous every single time he knew he was going to see Kaneki from now on? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Would Kaneki notice?

 

“Oi,” Touka put a hand on his shoulder, making him jump, “you’re overthinking again. You better do something about that or you’ll overheat before you make the first move.”

 

“Y-Yeah…”

 

They entered the store despite the “Closed” sign hanging behind the window. Kaneki was behind the counter, clearly absorbed in his careful inspection of the boxes of tea sitting on the shelves. Hide took a deep, calming breath and strode up to the counter.

 

“Top o’ the mornin’, eh, Mister Manager?” he said cheerily.

 

Kaneki turned to him, startled. “Oh, it’s just you, Hide,” he said, smiling. “Good morning to you, too.”

 

“That ‘just’ part hurts,” Hide said, pouting.

 

“You know I was joking, right?” Kaneki’s smile abruptly morphed into an expression of disgruntled surprise. “Wait, _Touka_? What’s she doing here?”

 

“Well, _that_ ’s polite.” Touka had walked over to Hide’s side and was looking around at the shop with a frown and a wrinkled nose. She met Kaneki’s eyes and waved. “Nice to see you in the daylight for once.”

 

Pressing his lips together, Kaneki gave her a flat look. “You’ll regret it if you tell anyone I consider… difficult to deal with,” he said warningly in that nocturnal-animal voice of his that Hide was beginning to like (how twisted was _that?_ ).

 

She began fiddling with the small basket next to the cash register, picking up a plastic-wrapped chocolate chip cookie and turning it over in her hands. “Depends on your definition of ‘difficult,’” she said loftily. “But you should know by now that I’m pretty tight-lipped when I have to be.” She jerked a thumb in Hide’s general direction. “Just ask this guy.”

 

Kaneki looked over questioningly at Hide who just shrugged and looked away, whistling. He turned back to Touka. “Fine. But I’m watching you—”

 

“I got it, I got it,” Touka talked over him irritably. “God, you’re such a nag.”

 

“ _What_ did you say—”

 

Hide figured it was about time for him to step in and play peacekeeper. “Guys, guys, c’mon, I’m still here and it’s seven in the morning so let’s, maybe, not try to kill each other?”

 

Kaneki let out a little harrumph and turned back to his tea inspection, indicating that he wasn’t interested in talking to Touka any further. Touka simply rolled her eyes and looked at Hide. “I’m taking the cookie,” she informed him.

 

“It’s a hundred yen, though.”

 

She fished out a coin from her skirt pocket and handed it to Hide. “There,” she said before taking the opportunity to lean in and whisper in his ear, “You’re _so_ the bottom. I’m calling it.” He flinched back, red-faced and spitting out half-sentences he couldn’t finish while she snickered at him. After a curt, one-sided farewell to Kaneki and a backhanded comment about how nice the place looked, she left, still smirking to herself.

 

Hide collapsed against the counter, groaning. “That was a bad idea…”

 

“You think?” Kaneki had turned back around, looking at him disapprovingly. “You and Touka are a lot closer than I thought.”

 

“Yeah, we’ve known each other since we were kids,” Hide replied, his face pressed against the cool marble top of the counter. “Haven’t been able to get rid of each other since.”

 

“Hmm. You’re not… dating, are you?”

 

He jumped to his feet and let out a sort of vehement, “No!” before he caught himself and repeated, in a calmer voice, “No. We’re just friends, I swear.”

 

Kaneki said nothing, only nodding once.

 

And then there it was. An awkward silence. Hide bit the inside of his cheek. He’d almost forgotten how horrible awkward silences were. Despite being the well-oiled socializing machine that he normally was, when he was with Kaneki, he was suddenly tongue-tied and really just a train wreck in progress. It was thrilling, but it was also terrifying.

 

“So where are we going today?” he asked, opting for a change of topic. “That weird owl café down the street? Bin Brothers’ Grill? Pierrot Resto? That fancy five-star one, Aogiri Tree?”

 

“None of that,” Kaneki replied. “Koma’s back on duty, starting today. He just left with Irimi, actually.”

 

“Oh.” Hide felt his heart sink to his stomach, burning a hole right down through it that let panic bubble up to his throat. “So does that mean I’m fired?” What would he do if he was? Finding another job wasn’t a nice and easy prospect. He’d hate to lose what he had now…

 

“Not… yet.” The sly little smile on Kaneki’s face was so unfair and yet it filled Hide with relief.

 

“Then what do I do now?”

 

“Well,” the white-haired manager said, gesturing to the shelves, “we’re running out of Earl Grey and Darjeeling.”

 

“So I’m on restocking duty?” Not so bad. Even if it meant spending a little less time with Kaneki than he used to, at least he still had an excuse to see him almost every day.

 

“Exactly. We used to have another guy doing that, but he quit a few months ago, so Yoshimura and I have been taking turns doing it. I have a list of places for you to go and things to buy besides the tea.” Kaneki passed him said list. It was much longer than the usual delivery list. Once again, he wasn’t sure if he knew where every item on the list was. All this baking jargon was making his head hurt.

 

“Kaneki?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“D’you think you could help me out?”

 

Was it just his imagination, or did Kaneki look like he’d just gotten what he wanted? No. Touka said he was overthinking. He was overthinking, right? Yeah, he was overthinking.

 

“It can’t be helped, I guess,” Kaneki said smilingly. “I’ll lend you a hand.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was a date. A date. A living, breathing _date_.

 

Or, at least to Hide it was. What was the actual definition of a date anyway? He’d looked it up a few seconds before they’d left Anteiku and it came up as “a social or romantic appointment or engagement.” This wasn’t exactly romantic, but it could be classified as social. It was also an appointment-slash-engagement. Therefore, it was a date and his brain was content with calling it as such. Even though it was a date, however, Hide sensed that something was off.

 

The places on Kaneki’s list were definitely not places Hide had ever gone to. They were off the main roads and barely had any people browsing through their wares. When they walked out on the streets, it was barely obvious, but Hide could see that Kaneki was a bit too tense. He remembered the young manager telling him about his suspension, how the Kamii Arts people treaded lightly around him and how the administration itself actively quashed any rumors about him. What Kaneki had done that warranted that, Hide wanted to know. Whatever it was, though, it seemed pretty damn serious.

 

Serious to the point that Kaneki was afraid of being recognized by someone in broad daylight.

 

Hide didn’t want to pry. He just wasn’t the type, unless it was something he _really_ needed to know. He preferred it when people opened up to him and besides, he usually figured things out before they did that. No need to rush them when he already had a feeling of what they would say. So he kept off that topic and stuck to the safe zone in an attempt to let Kaneki’s nerves rest easy.

 

“So when can I see you in action?” he asked lightly.

 

“What do you mean?” Kaneki’s eyes flicked to the couple that passed them by.

 

“I mean, baking-a-cupcake action. I was thinking, maybe someday I could get promoted to kitchen boy; I could pass you the knife or the rolling pin while you operate.”

 

“First of all,” he looked at Hide, crossing his arms, “surgery and baking are two totally different things. Second of all, I’m a bit iffy about letting an amateur near me when I’m doing that. You might get in the way and I’d accidentally burn your hands or something.”

 

“Ah, but that’s my point,” Hide said, holding up a finger. “I need to watch you so I know _where_ to put my hands.”

 

“That’s an awfully suggestive comment.”

 

Laughing loudly to hide his embarrassment, he sincerely hoped he wasn’t blushing again. “Have I ever told you how good I am at unintentional flirting?”

 

“No, but I’m sure it’s gotten you places.” Kaneki paused before a bookshop. He furtively peered into the entrance and evidently saw something he liked, from the way his expression lit up. “Hide,” Kaneki said, tugging on the cuff of Hide’s jacket sleeve, “can we make a detour here? Just for a few minutes?”

 

Hide shrugged, altogether much too focused on how Kaneki’s hand was _right there_ above his wrist and how, with a little adjustment, he could have just taken it into his own hand. “You’re the boss, Boss.”

 

“Thank you.” The white-haired manager said the words so sincerely it made Hide’s heart melt a little inside. He probably would have done something stupid like, oh, maybe _kissing_ that adorable little mouth, but the owner of said mouth had already turned away and rushed into the bookshop.

 

Hide watched him go and sighed. _I’m so dead_ , he thought to himself as he followed suit.

 

They returned to Anteiku just as Yoshimura arrived, key in hand and ready to unlock the shop for opening time, since Kaneki had locked up before they’d left, knowing Irimi and Koma wouldn’t be back for a while yet. The old man greeted them warmly and helped them with carrying everything on Kaneki’s hit list and a bit more than that. It was a good thing they both didn’t have any classes until after lunch, because they both would’ve been extremely late. Speaking of classes.

 

“You want to walk to Kamii together later?” Hide asked Kaneki as they hauled all the supplies to the kitchen.

 

“I would, but I can’t.” The young manager looked at him apologetically. “I have a ride.”

 

It was hard to keep the disappointment from showing, but Hide told himself it was only to be expected. Kaneki had a boyfriend, after all, and no matter how… _eugh_ the guy was, he still had every right to drive Kaneki to college. Hide was going to be a good adult and respect that… until he’d found enough evidence to do otherwise.

 

“Okay, cool,” he said. “Where do I put all this flour?”

 

“Over there in that closet. Bottom shelf.” Kaneki grunted, struggling with his own army of paper bags. “Yoshimura, could you put these books in the office for me? I hope you don’t mind or anything.”

 

“Not at all,” the aged man said kindly. He took the paper bag Kaneki nodded his chin to, having no available arms or hands to point it out. When he left, Kaneki dropped the bags onto the nearest workstation with a huff.

 

“What time is your class later?” Hide asked, as he pushed the flour bags into the shelf.

 

“Two to three. Then I’ve got a thirty-minute break until my next one. Why?”

 

“Oh, no reason.” He grinned to himself as he slid the last bag into the closet and shut the door. “No reason at all.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Ka-ne- _kiii…_ ” Hide sang as he opened the door to Room 506 of the Arts Building. “I finally found you!”

 

Kaneki was sitting in the very back of the room, a book about cakes in his hands (one that he’d bought earlier that morning, with Hide) and a half-eaten piece of French toast (one of two pieces that he’d made earlier that morning, with Hide) on the table attached to the arm of his chair.

 

“I had a feeling this would happen,” Kaneki said, lowering his book. “How did you manage to find me?”

 

“I told you, right?” Hide said, opening up his own paper bag of Anteiku goodies. “I’m the most likeable guy on campus. Nobody can say no to me. Not even the weird old guy downstairs. I think he was a janitor or something. But then why was he carrying all those lecture notes when I ran into him…?”

 

“ _Please_ don’t tell me you’re talking about Professor Mado…”

 

“White hair? Twitchy eye?”

 

“Yes. And yes.”

 

“Wow, yeah, that guy’s a _professor?_ That’s _weird_. Anyway, he was really curious about why I was looking for you.”

 

Kaneki blanched. “You didn’t say anything that could possibly make me look any worse to the administration, right?”

 

“Nah, just said you were my boyfriend.” Hide noted how Kaneki bristled ever so slightly at that. Well, Touka _had_ said once that testing the waters was important… “I’m just kidding, dude. Lighten up!”

 

“I would if you didn’t make jokes like that all the time…” he muttered.

 

“You, Kaneki, are misreading the point of my jokes,” Hide told him as he popped a strawberry tart into his mouth. “They exist to help you lighten up and not to make you… whatever the opposite of lightening up is. Darkening down? Ha.”

 

“You’re a riot,” Kaneki said dryly. “Why didn’t you just tell me you wanted to eat with me?”

 

“ _Because_ ,” Hide gave him a _what-are-you-talking-about_ look, “that would’ve ruined the surprise element.”

 

“It’s not really necessary…”

 

“Oh, but it is. You must never underestimate a good surprise attack.”

 

“A surprise attack, huh.” Kaneki rubbed his chin musingly.

 

The conversation branched out to other things as they ate and Hide appreciated, for the one gazillionth time, how _amazing_ Kaneki’s cupcakes were. Especially Natsuzora. That one was, hands-down, no questions asked, his absolute favorite. He could feel Kaneki’s eyes on him as he inhaled pastry after pastry and he assured the seasoned baker that his skills were on par with the gods’.

 

“Okay, so if I can’t be a kitchen boy or the delivery boy and I want to be more than just the occasionally-restocking boy, what _can_ I do?” he asked Kaneki at last.

 

The manager frowned and chewed his French toast slowly. After he swallowed his mouthful, he said, “I was thinking waiter, to be honest.”

 

“Waiter?” Hide echoed. He imagined it briefly, walking around and taking people’s orders, bustling in and out of the kitchen or to and from the cashier. It sounded tiring, but it was also appealing. Hide knew he’d like feeling as though he’d seriously worked for what he was getting.

 

“Yeah, I even have a waiter’s uniform in the office.” Kaneki bit his lip slightly. “Do you want to”—he cleared his throat—“try it on for size? See if it fits?”

 

There was an odd feeling nagging at the back of Hide’s mind, but he ignored it. “Sure, why not?”

 

For the second time that day, he wondered if he was imagining things because Kaneki, yet again, looked faintly like he’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted.

 

* * *

 

 

Kaneki let him into Anteiku at close to five thirty in the afternoon. The shop had just closed, and Hinami was leaving the shop with her mother. She waved enthusiastically at Hide as she left and Mrs. Fueguchi dipped her head politely at him. Yoshimura and a guy Hide didn’t recognize (probably Koma) were putting up all the chairs and Irimi was clearing out the display cases.

 

“Oh, Hide, you’re back?” she asked, straightening with a bunch of laminated pastry names and little white ceramic stands in a little basket hanging from her arm.

 

“Yep, just going to have a little work talk with Manager here,” he said, patting Kaneki playfully on the shoulder.

 

The other guy who was possibly Koma perked up at Hide’s name and walked straight over, abandoning his chair duty. He had a wide build, a big nose, and a funky hairstyle that mostly centered on the round, baby version of a pompadour sticking out over his forehead.

 

“So you’re Hide, huh?” he said, beaming and sticking out a hand. “I’m Enji. Enji Koma. In charge of deliveries. I was out for a while and I heard you took care of my job while I was. Thanks a bunch.”

 

Hide took his hand in a firm grip. “The name’s Hideyoshi Nagachika, but Hide’s totally fine. Congrats on your release, by the way.”

 

Koma blushed a little and scratched his nose sheepishly. “Thanks. I guess I’m not going to sneak a few bites around the kitchen anymore.”

 

“I sincerely doubt that,” Irimi said pointedly.

 

“Hey, now, Kaya, no need to be rude,” Koma said coolly.

 

“You can go ahead, Manager,” she said, ignoring him. “We’ll clean up quick and get out of your way.”

 

“Much appreciated of you, Irimi,” Kaneki said. “This way, Hide.” He led the way into the door beside the kitchen entrance. Before Hide ducked in after him, Irimi cast him a knowing look just as Koma began to whine about how badly she was treating a salmonella survivor.

 

With the door shut behind him, Hide continued after Kaneki down a short, narrow hallway that ended in a flight of stairs. They climbed up to a single landing and then up again to a locked door. There was a jangling of keys as Kaneki unlocked it and walked inside, flicking on the light switch.

 

“Wow,” Hide breathed. “It’s a mess in here.”

 

It really was. Books were piled everywhere, along with a few shirts and stained aprons. There was a single table and chair to one side next to a couple of shelves that were jam-packed with cookbooks. To the other side was an old-looking mahogany closet and to the back was, surprisingly, a bed. It was the only thing neatly made in the chaos.

 

Grimacing, Kaneki picked his way through the debris to the closet. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I haven’t let Yoshimura in here the past week. He usually cleans the place up.”

 

“That sounds like abuse,” Hide chided.

 

“He’s stronger than he looks. He used to be a black belt karate instructor, I think. Or was that judo? I can’t remember.”

 

“Seriously?” It wasn’t totally unbelievable, though. “He should talk to Touka. She’d love him.”

 

“I guess,” Kaneki shrugged one shoulder. “Anyway, he cleans up because he wants to, not because I make him. I’m not some slave driver.” Hide barely suppressed a laugh at that and was only successful because the white-haired manager glared at him enough to make flowers wilt.

 

He let his gaze wander around the messed-up “office” as Kaneki pulled open the mahogany closet doors and rummaged through its contents. There really were a crapton of recipe books. Was baking all Kaneki ever thought about? Surely there were other things (shady night life shenanigans aside). Hide noticed a few non-cookbooks here and there, but the most noteworthy discovery was that of a single tower of books all by one author. Sen Takatsuki. That morbid, horror-slash-gore, psychological tormentor of a novelist. It appeared as though all of his books were in that little tower shoved to one corner of the room and half-heartedly covered up by a tablecloth. It was almost as though Kaneki didn’t like seeing them, but still couldn’t bear the thought of throwing them away.

 

There was also another thing. Was that a… dartboard? It was behind a shelf, so Hide couldn’t be absolutely sure. There was a photo of someone… Someone familiar. And the photo itself looked like it had been—

 

“Here. Think fast.” A bundle of cloth flew into Hide’s face and dropped into his hands.

 

“Ooh, my potential new armor,” Hide said as he poked through the bundle.

 

“I’ll give you a minute to put it on.” Kaneki walked past him and out the door, closing it again before he could get a word in edgewise. Sometimes, the guy was just weirdly obstinate like that.

 

Hide shrugged off his jacket and pulled his shirt over his head. As he pulled on the waiter’s outfit (which really was no different from any other waiter’s outfit, really), he wondered about the bed. What was it doing there? Did Anteiku’s staff use it as a recharge station? It seemed unlikely that Kaneki would let any of them in here if they weren’t Yoshimura. Did Kaneki sleep here? Did he live here? If he lived here, then why? Where was his family?

 

“You done?” Kaneki called from the other side of the door.

 

“Yeah, I’m done.”

 

“I’m coming in.”

 

The door swung open and closed as Kaneki entered. Hide spread his arms and did a princess twirl, which didn’t work very well given that he wasn’t wearing a skirt. The little black half-apron fluttered a little though. “Well? How do I look?”

 

“A little too perfect.” Kaneki took a step toward him, appraising his body. “Are you sure you weren’t born to be a waiter?”

 

“Maybe? That would ruin the whole point of me being in International Studies, though.”

 

Kaneki took another step forward. He was a little too close for comfort now. Hide could feel the blush creeping into his cheeks. He backed away a bit, but Kaneki only followed after him until he stepped on his discarded shirt and flopped backwards into the bed. He sat up, confused. Kaneki was in front of him in an instant, standing in between his legs and looking triumphant. A nervous lump formed in Hide’s throat.

 

“Um, Ka… Kaneki?” he started, but couldn’t find the words to continue.

 

“Just this once,” the white-haired manager said, pressing a knee against Hide’s crotch and leaning forward, his breath hot against Hide’s lips, “shut up, will you?”

 

“What are you—?”

 

“Surprise attack.”

 

Then they were kissing. Just like that. They were _kissing_. Hide’s brain seemed to move in slow motion as he connected the dots and finally realized what was going on. By the time he did, Kaneki’s tongue was running over his teeth and his knee was grinding into Hide’s fast-growing erection. What was he supposed to do? _Fuck it_ , Hide thought, and he kissed Kaneki back with equal fervor. He tangled his hands in white hair and lost himself completely.

 

“Hide,” Kaneki gasped into his mouth, “you look hot in a tie.”

 

“Thanks for helping me realize,” he replied between kisses. “Not too shabby yourself in your baker outfit.”

 

Kaneki’s hands were on his shoulders, pushing him down, down, until he was on top of him and Hide was barely thinking coherent things. Those hands went and slid down, brushing against Hide’s chest and making him shudder. Kaneki laughed breathily against him and began to unbutton his shirt.

 

“Tie first?” Hide asked dazedly.

 

“No,” Kaneki replied. “Your hard little nipples first.”

 

Hide groaned at the dirty talk. This was definitely not Anteiku Kaneki. This was probably Ghoul 20 Kaneki or something. Whichever Kaneki he was, Hide didn’t dislike it. Not. At. All. This Kaneki kissed Hide with a passion verging on wildfire, hot and frenzied, like he’d been bottling it up inside the same way Hide had been. This Kaneki took Hide’s nipples in between thumbs and forefingers and pinched them in a way that sent jolts of pain and pleasure rolling through him. He arched his back into Kaneki with a moan.

 

Kaneki’s kisses trailed downward now, settling on Hide’s neck and staying there for a while, leaving lovebites aplenty. He gave Hide’s nipples a twist, eliciting a gasp, and nibbled his collarbone before moving further down and tearing off that half-apron.

 

“Someone’s raring to go,” Kaneki said, chuckling darkly as he eyed Hide’s crotch.

 

“ _God_ , Kaneki.” Hide pressed his palms against his eyes. “Please. _Please_.”

 

“I know,” Kaneki whispered, kissing Hide’s lips once more before he unzipped Hide’s pants and pulled them down along with his underwear. Hide felt his cock spring free of the fabric and he barely kept his voice down when he felt Kaneki’s lips on the tip.

 

When the manager started, he knew exactly what to do to send Hide right over the edge. He’d never felt anything like it. Then again, he’d never had anyone give him head before, so he didn’t exactly have a point of reference. He hadn’t even jacked off since the Ghoul 20 Men’s Toilet Incident. Maybe that was why, when he came, there was just so damn _much_. He’d yelped at Kaneki, warning him of the impending surge, but Kaneki had stayed where he was and taken it all in, even licking him clean, dick, inner thighs, and all.

 

Hide let his hands fall to his sides limply as he stared up at the ceiling, basking in afterglow. He looked over at Kaneki, who was standing up now, swiping his wrist across his sweaty forehead.

 

“It’s hot, huh,” Hide croaked.

 

“Yeah,” the manager replied absentmindedly, his eyes glazed over. “I need to get a fan in here.”

 

“Do you want me to…?”

 

“What? Oh.” Kaneki had followed Hide’s line of sight to his groin. “No. I’m good. Thank you.”

 

It was the same sincere “thank you” as that morning, but it was still totally different. Hide couldn’t trust himself to speak anymore and not ruin the moment, so he waited a few moments before pulling his pants back on. But he couldn’t _not_ ask. He couldn’t sit there, watch Kaneki look for a box of tissue, and _not_ say anything.

 

“Why?” he asked finally.

 

“Because I wanted to.” Kaneki stated it so matter-of-factly that Hide was sorely tempted to simply leave it at that, but at the same time, it began to fill him with an angry indignation. How could it not?

 

“That’s it? You gave me my first ever blowjob because _you wanted to?_ ” He was in love with Kaneki. His feelings weren’t something to simply brush aside with simple words like “want.” He’d hoped like a naïve, lovesick moron, if they ever got to a point beyond friendship, to make every “first” count and, sure, even though he’d loved every moment of what had just happened, it made him mad and it made him miserable that Kaneki hadn’t done it for a more eloquent reason.

 

“Do I need another reason?”

 

“Uh, yeah? Try, ‘I actually have feelings for you.’”

 

That made Kaneki pause, several emotions chasing each other behind his gray eyes. “But I don’t,” he said shortly.

 

“That’s just great, then,” Hide said plaintively, as he stood up and gathered his clothes on the floor. He stripped down to his underwear and put his own clothes back on. He tossed the rumpled uniform back to Kaneki. “You know why, Kaneki? Go on. Ask me why.”

 

Kaneki’s forced stoicism was beginning to falter, as it always did when Hide was around. “Why?” he asked quietly.

 

“Because _I_ actually have feelings for you,” Hide said, angrily jabbing a finger at his own chest. “Kaneki, I _love_ you. I’ve always wanted to do this kind of thing with you, but… I didn’t think you’d do it to make fun of me.” He stalked toward the door. “I’m going home.”

 

Now Kaneki’s eyes were wide, his hands outstretched, reaching. “Hide, no, I—”

 

“About the job, I’m sorry. I think I’ll find someplace else.”

 

When Hide left the room and shut the door behind him, he knew it was probably the cruelest thing he had ever done. He regretted leaving. He wanted to go back, to apologize, and to say everything better, to even ask for a round two he likely didn’t deserve. But he’d already closed the door. There was no going back now. He made his way down the stairs and into Anteiku’s public area. A couple of lights were still on, but everything else was turned off. It was empty, devoid of staff.

 

He didn’t know he was crying until someone pointed it out. Hide looked up, sniffling, at the sound of a familiar voice and knew that this was yet another one of those slap-in-the-face moments.

 

“Who made you cry, dear boy?” Tsukiyama asked sweetly, in a voice laced with something poisonous. “Would it happen to be my fair-haired _trésor_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for cliffies~  
> Hope you liked the slightly-longer-than-usual chappie this week~  
> Next chapter preview: a dash of Kaneki POV at last


	7. Understanding What It's Worth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look look Kaneki’s POV! The drama llama rears its ugly head and all I can say about this chapter is that shit’s going down for real and it’s not getting any better any time soon. It's really not.  
> I still don’t totally get how the Tokyo subway really works, so if you see inconsistencies, you know why. :P

**_Kaneki_ **

 

He watched Hide go, unable to move a muscle. When he heard the muffled sound of footsteps descending the stairs, he released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

 

“He loves me,” Kaneki whispered. It made him smile. It shouldn’t have. He’d just done something horrible. But he was smiling anyway. “He loves me,” he repeated, reveling in the sound and shape of the words as they sprung from his tongue into the stale air of his office-cum-bedroom. He threw his head back and laughed. “Hide _loves_ me!” he declared to his ceiling, spreading his arms wide. “Hide loves _me_!” The novelty of it made him cackle until his voice cracked and a sob wracked his body.

 

_What have I done?_

 

It had been a game of cat and mouse and Kaneki had liked thinking he was the one leading Hide by the nose the entire time. It was supposed to be one of his stupid little side projects, the ones that served only to satisfy him when Shuu wasn’t around to. He’d wanted to trap the bleached blond, make him squirm, and _enjoy_ it. Then, after that, they were both supposed to treat it like it had never happened, like their inner demons had finally been curbed and tamed and utterly satisfied with a clandestine act of self-gratification. They should’ve gone on with their daily routine, passing each other by with cordial hey’s and how are you’s, and never should have wanted more than just that. People never asked _why._ Nobody asks _why._ That was how it _always_ worked.

 

But this had taken far too long. This had involved him far too much. He’d tried to take a step back, to get detached, to get unemotional, but Hide pulled him three steps further in every. Single. _Damn_. Time. How in the world did he even get Kaneki to smile so much in one day? There had been more than one night that Kaneki had gone to bed with his facial muscles sore from all the smiling. It had to be a superhuman ability. It had to be.

 

Well, superhuman or no, Hide was different from the others. He talked to Kaneki like he was _normal_. No different from the rest. It wasn’t like how psychiatrists or doctors talked down to him with their pretentious diagnoses, or how the Kamii staff and students tiptoed around him like he was a ticking time bomb, or how club and bar patrons eyed him for the rumored promises of his tongue and body. Hide talked to him straight, like they were on even ground. No down’s or up’s, no pretenses (well, at least for the most part). Just plain old conversation. Kaneki hadn’t known the feeling of a conversation like that since…

 

“No,” he said aloud, cutting off _that_ train of thought. “You’re not going to think about that, Kaneki. Don’t go there. Don’t.” _If you lose it now, you might not get it back again._ He sucked in a breath and counted backwards from 1000 in intervals of seven. It calmed him down enough to think again.

 

Kaneki was only starting to piece things together properly and it had taken hurting Hide’s feelings to do so. For so long, it had been easy keeping other people at an arm’s length away from himself, but here was Hide, bouncing in for all he was worth and changing all of that, and what had Kaneki done? He’d done the same as he always had: taking things for granted, grabbing what he wanted at a glance and toying with it until he’d gotten tired. _Like some sort of compulsive shopper, aren’t you, Kaneki?_ Uta had told him jokingly that fateful night when he’d first laid eyes on Hide.

 

What was worse was that Hide had actually _fallen_ for him. Nobody fell in love with Ken Kaneki. It just wasn’t done. Shuu Tsukiyama was the only one with that right purely because he’d gotten there first, before all the rules, before all the camouflage and subterfuge. He’d marked his territory first and though his territory could do whatever the hell it wanted to do, the one thing it couldn’t was belong to someone else. Everybody knew it.

 

Everybody except Hideyoshi Nagachika.

 

Kaneki groaned, a lump in his throat he wanted to wring out himself. Yeah, he’d screwed up. More even, than usual. He’d gotten attached and he’d opened up more than he’d meant to, and maybe Hide had—subconsciously—sensed that and had gotten himself attached too. Way too attached. Kaneki needed to apologize. He needed to set things straight and ask, perhaps even beg to start over.

 

But first he needed to get out of his sweltering uniform. He went over to the closet and found a spare shirt and jeans to change into. He groped for his phone and found it in the back pocket of his discarded uniform’s pants. The red LED light blinked, signaling a new message. He flipped it open.

 

It was from Shuu.

 

Apprehension gripped Kaneki like a vice. Shuu was, in spite of his self-absorbed posturing, a perceptive man. Just last week, he’d noticed Kaneki’s distracted thoughts. Had he figured something out…? Swallowing hard, Kaneki opened his message.

 

_He will be safe with me._

 

“Shit,” he spat, fumbling with his phone as he drew up a new message.

 

 _Don’t do anything drastic_ , he typed. _He’s_ … Kaneki trailed off, his thumb hanging over the kana for “ha/wa.” What was he supposed to say? Special? Important? Kaneki didn’t deserve to call him that. Not right now. With a huff, he finished the message and sent it off. _He’s a friend._

 

The reply came quickly. _I know, ma belle._ _I just wish to… clarify certain things with him._

 

Kaneki winced. _He’s harmless._

_I will make sure of that_ , Tsukiyama replied.

_Don’t hurt him._ Kaneki grit his teeth. If anything happened to Hide…

 

His phone lit up with a reply.

_Not if he makes it necessary._

 

Well, _that_ certainly sounded promising. Throwing up his hands, Kaneki dived into a nearby pile of books and clothes and came out holding a ratty old brown coat. It had belonged to his father, one of only two things in the world that he had left of his real parents. He shut off the lights and left the office that also served as his bedroom most nights these days.

 

Kaneki already had an apology on his tongue and a sort-of-kind-of confession forming in the back of his mind, though he still needed time—a _lot_ of time—to think about the latter. For now, he just couldn’t lose him. Not the one person who made him feel like he was home no matter where he was.

 

Hide had better be okay. If he wasn’t, well… Kaneki tried not to think about what he would do then.

 

* * *

**_Hide_ **

 

Hide was totally okay, much to his own surprise because he honestly thought he was mincemeat the moment Tsukiyama melted out of the gloom and offered him a ride home. Sure, he was a sniveling, hiccupping mess for most of the journey, but he was decidedly lucky that Tsukiyama was pre-occupied with his cellphone while he was busy trying to piece his heart back together.

 

“I live just around that corner,” Hide said, wincing at how ugly his voice sounded when it was thick with tears. That was definitely one part about crying he hadn’t missed.

 

“ _Entendu_ ,” Tsukiyama replied, turning the wheel with a flourish.

 

Hide stopped him about a block down from where his house stood, not wanting Dad to see him get out of an extremely nice ride and have a potential expensive-car-destroying fit. Tsukiyama, full of surprises tonight it seemed, got out of the car and helped Hide out.

 

 _What the hell is the deal with this guy?_ Hide thought, suddenly wanting the energy to get annoyed because he was starting to—against his own will—warm up to his supposed rival.

 

They stopped just before his house and, as was the non-assehole-ish way to treat the boyfriend of the guy you like, Hide thanked Tsukiyama and promptly sneezed all over his fancy white suit.

 

“Sorry for tha’,” he said, words slightly garbled by a congested nose. “I don’ have any tissue…”

 

“Allow me,” Tsukiyama said graciously, pulling a handkerchief (clearly pure silk) from his breast pocket and handing it to Hide.

 

“Thanks,” Hide said thickly before he blew his nose violently into it, savoring the briefest look of disgust that flickered across the taller man’s face. Well. At least there were _some_ things Tsukiyama couldn’t totally gloss over. Hide held the sticky cloth out to him, all goodwill gone.

 

“Keep it, as a reminder that I am capable of kindness.”

 

“Whatever floats your boat, I guess,” he said, pocketing the handkerchief. He stood there for a while, a bit awkwardly, before he realized that Tsukiyama was waiting for him to say something. He almost scoffed. What was there to say? Tsukiyama was the last person he wanted to talk to right now. He just wanted to go somewhere he could cry in peace. Just as he nodded stiffly at Tsukiyama and began to head home, the taller man stopped him.

 

“You fail to understand why I chose to talk to you, dear boy,” he said, his tone amicable, but something in his eyes betraying a nasty glint. That, and the he way he talked down to Hide, calling him a “boy,” was really getting on Hide’s nerves. “You do realize that you’ve encroached upon my territory, yes?”

 

Hide didn’t see any reason to pretend to be nice. “Yeah, your boyfriend, I know,” he said tartly. “Well, I’m not going to bother him anymore.” _Probably_ , he caught himself adding mentally. He shook that thought away. _You were the one who was rejected_ , he told himself fiercely. _You’re not the one who has to go crawling back._ Funnily enough, he heard that in Touka’s voice instead of his own.

 

“Yes, my lover, _mon trésor_ , _ma bien-aimée_ Ken!” Tsukiyama said, one hand on his chest and the other palm-up in the air, looking like he was acting out a bad play. “And I see that you have been witness to one of his… unguarded moments.”

 

Hide’s hand flew up to his throat and, despite himself, wanted to smile at the memories of Kaneki marking him the way he had. The very same memories however, left a bitter taste on his tongue that he couldn’t deny.

 

“It wasn’t because he meant to do it,” Hide deadpanned. “It won’t happen again.”

 

“Oh, I know it won’t. I will make absolute sure of _that_. What I want to do now is the honorable way to go about things…”

 

Hide set his jaw. If this was going the way he thought it was, if Tsukiyama was going to say what Hide thought he was going to say, he was going to punch the guy. So what if he owned a billion yen in assets? So what if Hide went to jail for it? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered right now except that stupid, arrogant face that was just _begging_ to be smashed in.

 

“… which is to respectfully escort my defeated rival off the sta—”

 

“ _Look_ ,” Hide interrupted, hands shaking at his sides, fingers curling into his palms, “I just… want to go home, okay? I’m tired. I’m sleepy. If you have an actual point, you should just get to it because I’m really _not_ in the mood for jokes and if you knew me half as well as you should, you’d know that that’s another way I say ‘Fuck the hell off.’” It was a foolhardy display of bravado he never would have managed, bad mood or not, if he hadn’t grown up the way he had, with his parents and with the Kirishima siblings. He’d grown a spiky backbone with those people that he usually didn’t like keeping on display. It was handy for rare times like these, when he just couldn’t see the point in being friendly.

 

Tsukiyama’s hands lowered to his sides and all at once, every single pretense on the man’s face had fled, replaced by a cold, calculating look. Something prowled behind those eyes, like a predator waiting hungrily for flesh to rip apart. Was this his true face? A chill down Hide’s back warned him that there was more yet to be seen from this man. There was madness deep down in those eyes that Hide could just barely make out.

 

“Very well,” Tsukiyama said frostily, lifting his hands a little and steepling his fingers. “I shall be quite blunt. Stay away from what is mine, and you will remain unscathed.”

 

“You’re threatening me?” Hide said incredulously. It sounded terribly low, even for him.

 

“I understand this seems unscrupulous, but Ken is not a matter I take lightly.”

 

 _He’s not a ‘matter,’_ Hide thought angrily. _He’s a_ person _!_

 

“As such, I’ve taken it upon myself to _protect_ him and, to an extent, those around him,” Tsukiyama continued, spreading his arms. “He is… unstable. He needs _moi_ to keep him sane.”

 

 _Are you sure you’re not the one driving him_ in _sane?_ “What are you talking about?” Hide demanded. “What do you mean, he’s ‘unstable’? What does he need protecting _from_?”

 

“Oh, dear,” Tsukiyama bared teeth with a smile that was less a smile and more a tight-lipped snarl. “I don’t think I should be telling you that. But, rest assured, Hideyoshi Nagachika, that you are dealing with things far beyond you.”

 

“Answer my—!”

 

The gourmet restaurant mogul’s cellphone began to ring again—some dramatic piece of classical music—and he held it up in front of Hide. “That would be _mon amour_ ,” he said loftily. The caller ID only backed him up on his claim. “Run along now, dear boy, if you understand me.”

 

It was an impeccably rude dismissal and, though Hide was loath to admit it, there was nothing he could do. Besides, he didn’t hold any sway over Kaneki’s heart. What did it matter if he stayed and argued himself into a corner? Kaneki wouldn’t care. With heavy feet and a heavy heart, Hide trudged off for home just as Tsukiyama picked up and said, “Yes, _mon cher_? You needn’t worry. He will not bother with you any longer.”

 

* * *

  ** _Kaneki_**

 

Kaneki hung up with a tepid curse. He was standing in the middle of Nerima station, his thoughts running faster than the trains themselves. He’d assumed the worst and thought that Shuu would bring Hide to his estate outside of Tokyo, to do God-knows-what to the innocent blond, because he wouldn’t put it past the man to do that. But after hanging up, Kaneki knew that he’d really only talked to Hide. The triumph in his voice had been unmistakable.

 

He was relieved, yes, but now his senses had been jarred back into the weighty reality of the situation. If Shuu really _had_ talked to Hide, things got a little more complicated. He couldn’t approach Hide now, not without evaluating the state at hand. He didn’t trust himself to say the right thing anymore, not after what had happened earlier, and especially not now when he hadn’t even totally gotten his shit together yet. He was still getting the hang of what Doctor Kanou had always told him to do. _Take it one step at a time_. That was, of course, little more than ten years ago, before he’d realized that the “kind” old man was using him as some sort of lab rat for new, illegal drugs he was developing for the black market.

 

So much for being the best Ota Mental Institute could offer.

 

Before Kaneki knew it, he had taken the eastbound train on the Oedo line without a particular set destination. He glanced at his watch. It was still around seven thirty. There was plenty of time to ride and think, without having to get off anywhere. Part of him itched to get off at Roppongi, since it was right there, eight stations along the line. But he knew that if he did, he would only end up at Ghoul 20. Again. The Shinto gods only knew what good _that_ would do him.

 

Shuu was asking him where he was. Kaneki knew it without even looking at his phone. What could he say? Some philosophical load of bull about how he was “nowhere” since trains aren’t exactly at any single place at all times? He doubted Shuu would take that as well as Hide would. Hide would likely come up with a hilarious outburst about how “nowhere” is still technically “somewhere” and would Kaneki please tell him where he is because he wants to see him. Badly.

 

Kaneki sighed, burying his face in his hands. Great. Now he was projecting himself onto imaginings of Hide. He couldn’t even _think_ beyond three sentences without implicating the blond into it somehow. It was like a… a disease or something. A bug he couldn’t shake off. It was emotion. It was weakness.

 

It was addictive.

 

 _Okay, I’m clearly not getting anywhere like this_ , he thought grimly. _Think about something else. Think about Anteiku._

 

Anteiku. That heaven of all heavens. Yoshimura, that godsend of a man, and Hinami, precious little Hinami. They’d been the ones to take him in the day he’d run off after that stupid incident at the beginning of the academic year that had suspended him for an entire semester. Wet with rain, shivering, furious at himself, and letting the trigger swallow his mind whole, he’d almost lashed out at them too. But Yoshimura was strong, years of training beaten into his old bones and muscles. He’d held Kaneki down while Hinami had gone to heat up some milk.

 

_“I’ll kill you,” Kaneki said laughingly as he struggled against Yoshimura’s grip. “I’ll fucking rip your throat out, old man, and I’ll put it up in my room like a goddamned trophy.”_

_“Throats are best left alone, I believe.” Yoshimura pinned him, stomach-down, on the floor with a knee against his back, twisting his arms behind him and gripping them by the wrists. He put a heavy foot on Kaneki’s ankles, to keep his legs from thrashing. “Now, young man, if you would please calm down, my dear Hinami here has some milk for you.”_

_“I don’t want your fucking milk,” Kaneki snarled. He laughed evilly. “I want your blood on the floor, your insides up on the ceiling—”_

_“Mister?” Hinami approached with a mug in her hands and a worried look on her face. “I think you need some of this. It might help.”_

_“Help? No one needs help here!” he said shrilly. “I don’t need any more help from_ anyone _!”_

_“My mom says hot milk always melts your troubles away,” Hinami said kindly, ignoring his outburst. “Here, I’ll show you.” She knelt and, with Yoshimura’s help, managed to get the mug to Kaneki’s lips and tipped some of the hot liquid in, scalding the roof of his mouth._

_He coughed, spitting most of it out on the floor, but Hinami wasn’t done yet. She got down again and made him drink every last drop until his mouth was burned numb and he could feel the heat coursing down to his stomach, pooling there like a little well of comfort. He felt himself relax, his mind and vision clearing up a bit._

_Yoshimura released him and stepped aside to let him roll onto his back and sit up. He rolled his aching shoulders and looked up at both of them, feeling shame well up inside of him._ First another freshman, now an old man and a little girl, _he thought bleakly._ How many people do I have to hurt before those idiot doctors take back my freedom?

 

_“I’m sorry,” he said softly, bowing as deep as he could while seated. “I’m so… I can’t apologize enough. That was… I’ve been taking medication for it, but…” He grit his teeth. No, this wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry—”_

_“There is nothing for you to apologize for,” Yoshimura assured him. “Self-blame is best taken in moderation, in my opinion. In any case, neither Hinami nor I were harmed. Hinami, dear, could I ask you to mop up the floor?” Hinami nodded and disappeared into a door at the back of the shop._

Because you held me back _, Kaneki thought bitterly. “I still could have—”_

_“You ‘could have’ is not the same as you ‘did.’ If you carry nonexistent burdens, you will find the journey far more difficult than it should be,” the old man advised, pulling up a chair. “Have a seat. Do you like coffee?”_

_“Yes,” Kaneki said, frowning in confusion, as he clambered onto the chair._

_Yoshimura walked behind the counter and pulled a pack of coffee grounds out of an overhead shelf. “How do you take it?”_

_“Black.”_

_“Ah, bold preferences, I see.”_

_“Why did you help me?” Kaneki blurted, unable to take the leisurely flow of the conversation any longer. “I was going ballistic on you. I could’ve really killed you. I_ wanted _to kill you. Why did you do it?”_

_Yoshimura kept his back to Kaneki, intent on the coffee. Hinami reappeared with a mop and bucket and set to work cleaning up Kaneki’s mess. “At times,” Yoshimura said, “murderous intent does not make a murderous man.” In little more than a few minutes, he was serving Kaneki a steaming cup of coffee and handing him a small towel to dry himself off. He took a seat across from Kaneki and smiled a warm smile._

_“That doesn’t answer my question,” Kaneki said bluntly._

_“I took a friendly wager. I only happened to be right.”_

_“You were_ betting _on the off chance I wasn’t going to kill you?” He scoffed. “You’re either insane or the most stupid person I’ve ever met.”_

_“Perhaps.” The old man seemed a bottomless pit of patience. Kaneki found himself looking at Yoshimura with a bit of awe._

_A while later, he found himself telling Yoshimura his story. Hinami listened in, but Kaneki, despite himself, didn’t mind. He didn’t say_ everything _, of course, but he did say all the things that had led up to this very moment with him sitting in a tiny bakeshop with a cup of (delicious) coffee in his hands. Yoshimura heard him out with a respectful silence, frowning and nodding whenever the narration seemed to deem it necessary. When Kaneki was done, he grudgingly expected a sort of pity party, but, amazingly, Yoshimura and Hinami did nothing of the sort._

_“Do you want to work here, Mister?” Hinami said abruptly. At Kaneki’s raised eyebrows, she caught herself and blushed. “It would be fun. Baking is a lot of fun.”_

_“It’s never crossed my mind to try before,” he said truthfully. “I never really do anything at home except read and walk around the estate.” He paused, and the question he asked next was something he never imagined he would ask. “What makes baking so fun for you anyway?” He clamped his mouth shut. He’d asked that in such a rude, unimpressed tone that the little girl just didn’t deserve. He hoped she wouldn’t cry or anything._

_But Hinami was, like Yoshimura, defying all of Kaneki’s expectations. Her face lit up at the question and she launched into a long and enthusiastic (though often derailed) discussion on the thrill of baking. “… I always bake with Mom at home,” she said, smiling widely. “At first I thought it was really tedious to have to measure every single thing instead of just dumping it all into a bowl, but then it turned out to be really fun when I got the hang of it! It’s like… when you mix everything together and when you put it in the oven, waiting is_ hard _but it’s so_ exciting _too. Then when you pull it out, the feeling you get when you know you’ve got it right…” Hinami’s eyes turned wistful. “It’s wonderful.” She turned to Kaneki. “You have to try it, Mister. I’m sure it’ll make you feel loads better.”_

_“I don’t know if ten years of being the way I am can be fixed by whipping up a few cupcakes.” Kaneki looked down at his coffee. It was a little cold now, and close to the bottom of the cup. Yoshimura had definitely put something in it. Why else would Kaneki’s heart feel as warm and fuzzy as it did? His heart didn’t do things like that. It just couldn’t. And yet it was._

_“Regardless of your decision on the matter,” Yoshimura said, “you are very welcome here. Any time you feel unwelcome anywhere else, know that you can always come here.”_

_Kaneki gaped at him. He’d always… He’d always assumed that no one on the planet could rival his real parents’ warmth and kindness. He’d since grown up with both the cruelest of men and the freakiest of them. Was it even possible that anyone in the world was_ this _selfless, this kind to a random stranger come in from the rain who—literally—screamed bloody murder? Kaneki had never believed it. Not once. But now here were Yoshimura and Hinami, proving him wrong._

_“I… Thank you,” he said sincerely. “I don’t deserve this and I’m not sure if I can ever repay you both, but thank you.”_

_Yoshimura and Hinami both cast him welcoming grins and he felt something warm fill his chest from the bottom up. Maybe it was the milk, or maybe it was the coffee. All Kaneki knew was that hope wasn’t gone for him just yet. He could still get better._

_He could start right here._

 

Kaneki was jostled awake at a little past midnight when the train lurched into motion from Azabu-Juban. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and stretched his stiff joints. He looked at his watch and couldn’t believe the time. He’d really fallen asleep for five hours on a train? It was crazy. The thing must have gone nearly four rounds since he’d gotten on. He resolved to get off as soon as it stopped at Nerima again. The metro would close up soon. This was perhaps the Oedo line’s last round before it stopped for the night.

 

The next stop was Roppongi and Kaneki didn’t exactly expect Touka to come barreling in holding another girl’s hand like the apocalypse was at their heels. They both skid to a stop in the train, panting and doubled over, hands on their knees. Touka straightened first, winded, and pulled out her phone, texting like her hands were on fire. The other girl had shoulder length brown hair and was eyeing her worriedly.

 

It didn’t seem like Touka was going to realize he was there any time soon, but since a familiar face was a welcome thing right now, what with his weird, emotional mood, he couldn’t help saying her name aloud to catch her attention. Her head snapped up and she looked at him, open-mouthed.

 

“You,” she said, when she’d gotten over her shock. “Did Hide call you too?”

 

Kaneki’s chest hurt a bit at the mention of Hide’s name but the look on Touka’s face made the feeling fade almost instantly. “No,” he said slowly. “Why would he?”

 

It looked like it pained her to say it. There was a fire in her eyes and tenseness to her stance that put Kaneki on edge too. She kept fingering her phone nervously, like she was waiting anxiously for a call, a text, anything.

 

“He’s in the hospital,” she said quietly.

 

That made Kaneki jump to his feet in alarm. _Did Shuu—?_ “Why?” he demanded. “Why is he at the hospital? Is he hurt?”

 

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “It’s his mom. She tried to kill herself. Hide’s at the ICU right now. He thinks she’s going to die.”


	8. Pulling Off The Covers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept saying that this chapter would take me a while, but here I am, four days (has it really just been four days) later, putting this up because when it got to the bbys’ convo, I just couldn’t stop. It’s a shorter-than-usual chappie, but chock-full of feels.  
> I did my best looking up medical shit for this chapter, but I didn't really understand a lot of it.  
> And HEY! The ending isn’t /that/ bad for once, I promise.

Hide couldn’t stay inside for long. The cold, disembodied hum of machines and the sickening smell of antiseptic forced him to stumble out of the ICU and into the visitors’ waiting room. He sat down on one of the couches and leaned forward, hugging his stomach and trying not to puke all over the thick scarf around his neck and the floor.

 

This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening. This was all a dream. Yeah, that was it. One big, bad dream that had crawled out from beneath Hide’s bed and decided to sleep next to him tonight and would be gone by morning. Because who on earth had luck this horrible? Who got taken advantage off, got rejected, and discovered their mother close to death all in one night? It just wasn’t humanly possible to have all this shit on your plate. As far as Hide knew, he didn’t deserve this kind of thing.

 

He hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d lived a good nineteen years without hurting anyone. He’d even put up with Dad’s stupid behavior for most of it. He’d done everything he could to ease the burden on Mom. Was it just _not_ enough? Was anything _ever_ going to be enough?  


He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, doubled over, but next thing he knew, someone had him wrapped up in a warm bear hug. He felt tears prick his eyes and reached out, returning the embrace.

 

“Touka,” he whimpered. “Touka, she’s… I… This _sucks_ …”

 

She hugged him tighter and said, “It’s okay to cry, you moron. I’ve never seen you cry, so you better make this worth my while.”

 

He did cry. The tears came easily, flooding his cheeks like a dam had burst behind his eyes. Maybe a dam _had_ burst somewhere within him. It had been cracked, slowly weathered by years and years of all this… this _shit_ piling up on top of it, and maybe what Kaneki had done mere hours before was the final catalyst that had sent everything falling down. In any case, Hide buried his face into Touka’s shoulder, the scratchy wool of his scarf tickling his wet cheeks. He held onto her like a lifeline. He didn’t exactly sob or whine but he breathed heavily between gritted teeth, screwing his eyes shut and waiting for the deluge to stop.

 

“It’s okay,” Touka said, rubbing circles into his back. “It’s all going to be okay. She’ll be okay, and you won’t be able to stop me this time when I kick your dad’s ass.”

 

It took a while before he finally calmed down enough to talk. He sniffled loudly and reached into his pocket for a wad of tissue to blow his nose into. While he dried his eyes, Touka pulled away and took the empty seat beside him, keeping a steadying hand on his back.

 

“Better?” she asked.

 

“Much,” he said, nodding.

 

“What happened?”

 

Hide sucked in a breath. “I… was going home,” he said carefully, his gaze dropping to his knees. “I made dinner like usual. When I went upstairs to give Mom her share, she wasn’t answering, so I tried the door. It was unlocked. She never left it unlocked. I went in and…” His throat constricted at the memory of the empty room. How he’d scrambled to the open window and seen her broken body lying on the ground below, the foaming spittle dribbling from her lips and the blood oozing from her nose. “… and there she was. I dropped everything and called for an ambulance.”

 

He remembered the panic, the pure, undiluted terror that was running through his veins as he waited for the ambulance to come. He remembered debating with himself about whether or not he should just carry her to her car and drive her there himself.

 

“Drug overdose, head trauma from the fall. Not to mention a few dozen broken bones.” He forced out a laugh. It sounded like a dying wheeze. He’d known—he’d suspected for a while that she had had… intentions. He never could have imagined just how badly she’d wanted to die that she’d actually down an entire bottle of prescription narcotics _and_ jump from the second floor of their house. All to make sure that she didn’t live to see the next morning.

 

“Her heart’s been started up again, but she’d been out for so long…” Hide shook his head. “Everything else just started failing. I… I don’t know what’s going on in there right now. I can’t—I can’t watch her like that, Touka. I don’t want to see her _die_.”

 

Touka put a hand on his head and pulled him toward her to lean against her shoulder. “You don’t know if she’s going to die,” she said quietly. “Don’t overthink things, idiot.”

 

Hide closed his eyes. “Thanks for being here, Touka,” he said. “I didn’t know how I’d get through this alone. I didn’t wake you up or anything, did I?”

 

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “I was just out and about with Yoriko.”

 

“Oh, shit, did I ruin any—”

 

“Relax, peabrain,” Touka cuffed him gently on the back of his head, smiling. “Everything’s fine. I brought her home, too.” She paused. “And… there’s something else you need to know.”

 

He straightened. “Did you two…?”

 

“No, we didn’t,” she said, sighing. “Sorry. But that’s not the point right now. On the way here, I bumped into someone.” She looked at him, but he only gestured for her to continue. “Someone you know. Someone who told me he did some shitty things to you—which probably have something to do with that scarf you’re wearing—and said he’s really sorry about them.”

 

“Kaneki,” Hide said. It surprised him how little saying the white-haired manager’s name affected him now. Even though the events in the Anteiku office had happened only hours before, the hours seemed to have stretched into years. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe then, he didn’t have to deal with the emotional whiplash that he’d only recently begun to associate with Kaneki’s name, face, body, and entire existence.

 

Touka nodded gravely. “He’s… Well, he’s outside right now,” she said, eyeing him warily. “He said to tell you that even though he wants to talk to you, you’re totally free to kick him out. I thought of shaking him off on the way here, but something told me you two have a lot of stuff to work out before you move on—if you want to move on. I’m going to say this again, you don’t have to talk to him _now_ —”

 

“I’ll talk to him,” Hide said unwittingly. He bit his lip. “I don’t want to act like a brat and put this off. The sooner we talk, the better.”

 

“Hide, are you absolutely, one hundred per cent sure about this. I’m sorry, but your mom is in there; she might need you right now. You don’t need to do this.”

 

“I am, and I think she and I would rather that I stay with her without something like this weighing me down.”

 

“Okay,” she said, getting up. “I’ll let him know and give you guys some time alone.”

 

He nodded his head in thanks and she left the waiting room. Waiting for Kaneki was quick to prove itself a near-impossible trial. No matter how much Hide had convinced himself that it was going to be a simple, straightforward discussion about what had happened between them, it couldn’t stay simple and straightforward while his mind rehashed the events in Anteiku’s managerial office. Bringing it to mind, letting it surface above the heavy muck that was Mom’s life-or-death situation, was making Hide’s body react in ways it shouldn’t in the middle of a hospital waiting room.

 

Face burning, he clenched his jaw and tried not to think about Kaneki’s fiery touch and his soft lips and… _Uh oh_. He was still smitten with the white-haired manager. That much was obvious even to him. It didn’t help that what had happened between them had only added _hot_ and _sexy_ to his secret, personal arsenal of Words-To-Describe-Ken-Kaneki.

 

No. No, he was _not_ going to think about that right now. He tried to desensitize his heart with Kaneki’s painful words.

 

 _Because I wanted to_. _Do I need another reason?_

 

Cringing at the memory, Hide felt the warm flush from earlier ebb away from his cheeks and the rest of his body. Without it, he felt colder than ever.

 

Of course, that was the moment Kaneki chose to walk in, looking the part of a soldier trapped in a tower under siege with no way out except the rifle in his hands. He was wearing a faded brown coat that hung past his knees and a grim flat line of a mouth upturned at the ends in a sad attempt at a smile.

 

“Hey,” he said.

 

“Hi,” Hide returned.

 

“I’m sorry about your mother.”

 

“She’s not dead yet,” he said, a little more sharply than he intended. When Kaneki shrunk back a little at his tone, he couldn’t help but soften up a bit. _I’m a sucker for this jerk_ , he thought miserably. “Thanks for the concern. I really appreciate it.” He did his best not to sound like he was being sarcastic.

 

Kaneki ran a hand through his white hair and let it rest against the back of his neck, breathing a heavy sigh. “Hide, I’m really sorry about what I did,” he said, meeting Hide’s eyes anxiously. One of his hands curled loosely into a fist, one thumb running across the knuckle of his forefinger. It was something Hide had noticed him doing more and more often in the past few days. A nervous tic? “I didn’t stop to think before I acted, and I ended up hurting you. I’m really sorry—”

 

“Kaneki?”

 

The manager was babbling, looking down at his shoes and avoiding Hide’s gaze completely now. “—I can’t say it enough. I really am sorry. I couldn’t stop myself. I—”

 

“Kaneki.”

 

“—was an idiot. I want… I want to tell you everything but… arrgh!” His words devolved into a frustrated groan as he raked both hands through his hair. “It’s complicated. I’m complicated. You—We…”

 

“We’re complicated,” Hide finished for him softly. “I know. I have a front row seat to how complicated we’ve become.” He smiled. “It’s funny, actually. I didn’t think you’d come all the way here to apologize. It… It makes me really happy that you did.”

 

Kaneki’s head snapped up. He seemed to sense what Hide was coming to say. “Hide, I meant what I said about telling you everything. I just… I don’t know where to start.”

 

“You don’t have to force yourself to do that.”

 

“I’m not forcing myself to do anything!” he snapped before recollecting himself. “I really think you deserve to know why I did what I did, given that you feel… the way you do about me.”

 

Hide chuckled, shaking his head sadly. “I like you, Kaneki, I really do. You don’t need to tiptoe around my feelings like that again.”

 

Eyes widening, Kaneki opened his mouth for what was obviously yet another apology.

 

“Don’t,” Hide said, holding up a hand. “I already know what you’re going to say. So listen to me first.” When Kaneki closed his mouth and nodded, he went on. “Kaneki, I’m not… I’ve never been all that sure why I fell for you as fast and as hard as I did. Honestly, I thought I was straight two weeks ago. You,” he struggled for the right words, “make me want to know more about you. With everything you do, with everything you say, you make me want to know more.

 

“I’ve watched people all my life, all the way back since I’d had to read the looks in my parents’ eyes to figure out whether or not I needed to duck under the table and hope for a miracle. It’s been relatively easy for me to mentally segregate people—into categories, I mean—and to paste a smile on my face whenever I deal with the kinds I don’t like. You were one of those. At first. That’s why this whole deal with you is throwing me off my game, you know?” He laughed. Sincerely, this time.

 

“I’ve meant every smile I’ve smiled with you ever since you asked me if I tried one of your amazing cupcakes,” Hide told him. “You didn’t start out on my Top Ten People to Cherish For Life, but here you are.” He paused, beaming. “Here we are.”

 

“Even if I did what I did?” Kaneki croaked. “Even… even if I hurt you?”

 

“Even then.”

 

“Tsukiyama,” he said hoarsely, as if only just realizing what was clearly the largest obstacle. “I can’t just leave him.”

 

“Then don’t,” Hide said, picking at a stray thread at one end of his scarf. “I’m not making you do anything. I’m just telling you that it’s okay, I forgive you, and that my feelings haven’t changed. I’m hurt, yeah, and I’d be lying if I said that I wanted more out of this, but in the end, I still want—more than anything else—to stay right beside you. As a friend, if that’s alright.”

 

“I don’t deserve that.” The white-haired manager shook his head slowly. “I don’t deserve someone like you.”

 

“You’re not the one who gets to decide what you do and don’t deserve.”

 

“You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know what I’ve had done to me.” His gray eyes were like ice-cold steel. But behind that wall, Hide could sense something. A gentler thing, curled up and nursing wounds that wouldn’t heal on their own. “I’d tell you all of that, if you’d let me.”

 

Hide felt an ocean of warmth overflowing from his heart. He wished his smile could let Kaneki feel even a fraction of it, just so the manager knew that he didn’t need to worry any more than he already had. In the beginning, Hide thought that he’d be strong enough to leave Kaneki behind and keep going as he always had. He really was, and taking that first step away was all he needed to do to keep going. But Kaneki was… There was something about him that Hide knew to be fragile. A broken porcelain angel lay behind that entire nonchalant pretense. It was asking to be mended. Hide wanted to take a bottle of super glue and stick it back together, piece by miniscule piece. He couldn’t understand his sudden desire to fix what Kaneki was. Stupid though as it was, maybe it was because of all the things he’d never been able to fix, like the huge crevice at home that had begun with how Dad had cracked under the pressure and how Mom had taken the brunt of that.

 

Whatever the explanation, whatever the reason, Hide had hesitated mid-step and glanced back at what he’d been about to leave behind. He’d seen what Kaneki had always tried and failed to hide from him. He’d seen the weakness, the emotion in those eyes. And couldn’t leave.

 

“I feel like I’m the one who’s supposed to ask you permission for that,” he said, half-joking.

 

Kaneki’s eyebrows knit together. Oh, ever so serious Ken Kaneki. Sometimes, even the best-placed jokes went over his head. “Once I tell you,” he said unsmilingly, “you’ll be involved. I can’t let you get involved without asking you if it’s okay with you.”

 

Hide shrugged. “No biggie. I figured I was already pretty involved when I realized I had a crush on you so…”

 

“I mean it, Hide. What I’m going to tell you… If certain people find out that you know about it”—Kaneki cringed a little, like he was having trouble saying the next bit—“I can’t promise you that I can protect you. That doesn’t mean I won’t try,” he added hastily. “But it also doesn’t mean I won’t fail.”

 

“Kaneki, I’ve been through a lot.” It was truth, nothing less. “I won’t break that easily. Don’t worry about me.”

 

Relief etched itself across the white-haired manager’s features but just before he could say anything else, a nurse emerged from the ICU and approached Hide, whose blood ran cold at the sight of her. Her dour expression offered no indication of what she was about to say.

 

“Mr Nagachika,” she said, eyes focused on the clipboard in her hands. “The doctor would like to speak to you now.”

 

“O-oh, is that right?” He clenched, unclenched his fists, and struggled for even a wan smile. “Uhm. If you don’t mind… Could you give me the long and short of it before I go in…?”

 

The nurse blinked, as if she wasn’t used to having her opinion of the situation being asked for. She shuffled through the papers on her clipboard and looked up at Hide.

 

“Mrs Nagachika has stabilized,” she said. “Surgery is required for scattered bone fragments but as of now, she’ll be kept under intensive care.” She paused in the middle of her almost scripted-sounding explanation and smiled at Hide, patting him on the shoulder. “Your mother is fine. The doctor just wants to talk to you about the procedure for a bit.”

 

“Oh thank God,” Hide murmured, his legs going weak. He pressed a hand to his forehead and staggered backward. Kaneki rushed forward to catch him by his shoulders. Hide turned and threw his arms around Kaneki’s shoulders, burying his face in the nape of the manager’s neck.

 

“Hide? Shit, Hide, are you crying?” Kaneki sounded frantic.

 

“No, I’m _laughing_ ,” Hide replied happily. “And did I just hear you say ‘shit’?”

 

“Not funny, Hide,” Kaneki groaned, but he was smiling. He pushed the blond away and steered him toward the ICU. “Go and talk to that doctor. I’ll come back tomorrow. Then we’ll talk some more.”

 

“Okeydokey,” Hide said, grinning like a goofball. “Tomorrow, alright? It’s a date.” He couldn’t help that one.

 

Something flickered across Kaneki’s face. Was that… embarrassment? “Tomorrow,” he said softly, nodding.

 

When Hide waved his farewell and walked back into the ICU, he had to bite his lip to keep from smiling uncontrollably. He’d seen it. He was sure he’d seen it.

 

That little bit of pink dusting Kaneki’s pale cheeks.

 

* * *

 

 The next day found the two of them studying menus in a secluded café Kaneki visited sometimes which was a few blocks down from the hospital. Hide still had his scarf on, which drew a few curious stares, but mostly he was just waiting for Kaneki to point it out. The white-haired manager hadn’t even so much as glanced at the thing. Hide felt a little bit disappointed at that. It was like Kaneki was still afraid to acknowledge what he’d done. Or well, he _had_ acknowledged it, the idea of it, just not the… finer details. Hide suddenly longed for a day when they could just bring it up like _Hey remember when I left like three, four hickeys on your neck?_ and laugh about it the way two good friends would. He doubted it would come soon.

 

“So,” he said, lowering his menu, “have you decided on anything yet?”

 

“Mm hm.” Kaneki lowered his menu as well. “The hamburger set.”

 

Hide balked. “Woah, what? This thing?” He pointed a finger at one of the pictures on the menu. The hamburger set looked intimidating enough in a photo. What more in reality? As a matter of fact, what café on the face of this planet even served a hamburger set?

 

“Yes,” Kaneki said simply and that was that. They placed their order—Hide was just getting a club sandwich—and sipped at their glasses of water while waiting.

 

They made small talk, which, although it didn’t really go anywhere, was strangely easy for the two of them. As much as Kaneki said that he was hiding loads of not-so nice things from him, Hide found it a piece of cake to engage the guy in conversation. They didn’t exactly have much in common, but when they agreed on something, they _agreed_ on it. At some point in the conversation, Hide caught himself wondering if, in some other world, they’d met before everything that’d happened to them, would they have been friends? But it was an impossible thought to pursue. He still didn’t know what had happened to Kaneki. But that was the thing. He was about to find out.

 

They dug in when their orders arrived and since one of the things they agreed on was the importance of eating over talking, they ate in silence until they were both content. They asked for two cups of coffee and knew, the moment the coffee arrived, that the time for small talk was over.

 

Kaneki had visibly paled at the prospect of telling Hide everything about himself. He glanced around nervously, but they’d already made sure that no one was near enough to them to hear what they were talking about. This was assuming, of course, that they didn’t raise their voices. The white-haired manager’s hands wrapped around his cup and his thumb ran over the knuckle of his forefinger again. Hide made a mental note to ask him about that someday.

 

When Kaneki didn’t speak for several long moments, Hide cleared his throat. The manager snapped out of his reverie and shot Hide an apologetic look.

 

“Alright,” he said quietly, looking down at his coffee. “The first thing you should know is that I’ve”—he took a deep breath—“I’ve killed people.” He stopped himself there, letting his words sink in before continuing. His eyebrows had dipped into a scowl and Hide could see that he was going through vivid memories in his mind. “But I guess I should… start before all that. I was young when it all started. Nine years old, actually.”

 

And Kaneki began his story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll have Chapter 9 out in less than three days from now. I’m 99.9% sure.  
> Hold on to your childhoods because Kaneki is going to mutilate (part of) them mercilessly.


	9. What's Inside Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.K.A. Kaneki’s Backstory Part 1 (which I finished early bc I started it WEEKS ago)  
> Trigger warnings for practically everything that makes Explicit explicit. It's not too late to back out now. I'm seriously warning you. I've added the warning tags and everything.  
> Past Yamori/Kaneki tag will make sense here. I’d tell you to skip this chapter and the next one, but they’re pretty important. So… hold on tight.  
> (For your reference, the year is 2006.)  
> The song insert is “Sekai no Yakusoku” from Howl’s Moving Castle. For max effect, I highly recommend listening to it while reading. If you're masochistic like me.  
> I’ll, uh, I’ll go and cry in a corner. *shuffles off like a wounded turtle*

The Kaneki family lives in a dingy apartment on the edge of Nerima city. Ken is the only son of a semi-famous indie-genre writer and his kind wife. He lives in a warm home, shabby as it is, and never wants for more. His father is not the strongest man. In fact, he is a little bit on the lanky, stringy side, like a noodle standing up. His mother, however, is the picture of health and meek happiness. Her smiles are small but they light up the tiny family more than any number of Christmas lights can. She also makes the best hamburger in Japan. No, in the world.

 

The Kaneki family is always laughing. And singing. Oh, there is a lot of singing. These days, Ken’s father loves to sing the song from that new Ghibli movie Howl’s Moving Castle in a wobbly tenor, even when his wife and son beg him, laughing themselves to tears, to stop. Ken remembers his father’s thin hands scooping him up by his armpits and spinning him around and around until he is too dizzy to laugh any more.

 

They go out every weekend, no matter how much work Ken’s father has to do or how many chores his mother has weighing on her mind and her shoulders. If only to make Ken happy, they spend every waking moment of Saturday and Sunday with him. They go to the mall, window-shop, eat at the funniest little cafés, watch the latest Disney film, and generally spend the whole day in their own little world.

 

It happens on one of those weekends.

 

Ken no longer remembers what had consumed his father to take a different route from usual going home. It was something about a story idea…? They round a corner, entering a dark alley. Why had they done that? Ken remembers his father laughing with glee, skipping around the alley, jotting down notes on the notebook he carries around with him everywhere in case inspiration struck. His mother giggles, holding Ken’s hand in hers as they follow after the noodle of a man bouncing down the alleyway.

 

Then he is down on the ground, a pool of blood spreading around him and Ken’s mother is screaming, screaming, screaming. She takes Ken up in her arms and sprints to her husband’s side. Ken stares with wide eyes at the expertly thrown knife jutting from his father’s skull. Or no, it isn’t so expertly thrown. He knows this because when another knife comes flying out of the side alley, it digs into his mother’s shoulder, drawing out a strangled cry of pain from her.

 

“Mom!” Ken cries. “Mom, are you okay? Mom!”

 

“Oh _dear_ ,” says a deep voice from the murky darkness. Ken imagines, horrified, No-Face from Spirited Away. He’s always thought No-Face to be the creepiest thing ever. “I really am _horrible_ with knives. No aim at all.” No-Face steps out of the side alley and turns out to have a face of his own. It’s not a pretty one. His maniacal grin splits his face in two as he hefts a knife in one hand and a heavy pair of pliers in the other. “This is why this baby”—he lifts the pliers—“suits me best.”

 

“Ken,” his mother gasps, her fingers shaking as she reaches for the knife buried in her shoulder. “Run.”

 

“Mom!” Ken sobs, hot tears running down his cheeks. “Mom, no…”

 

She forcibly pulls the knife out of her shoulder and cups his cheek with a trembling hand. It’s slick with blood. “Run, my dear.” She plants a hasty kiss on his head. “Run. Run. _Go!_ ”

 

Ken is crying, but he knows he can do nothing else but listen to her. He gets on his feet, trips, picks himself up, and scrambles to get away. He hears his mother get up, hears No-Face-With-A-Face mock her for it.

 

He glances back.

 

Ken’s mother is holding up the knife she pulled out of her shoulder. She’s holding it up, arms shaking, eyes wild with terror. No-Face-With-A-Face steps forward. Ken knows she won’t use the knife. Ken knows she isn’t strong enough. Not her heart, not her mind, not her body. She will never hurt anyone, so long as she is alive.

 

That is why she is killed so easily. Like a candle’s flame snuffed out before it can even truly start. No-Face-With-A-Face has his third knife buried hilt-deep into the base of her throat, and she’s falling, falling to the ground, where she lies next to her husband. Ken’s legs fail him and he stumbles. He gets up. He screams.

 

“ _Mom!_ ” he shrieks. “ _Mooom! Dad!_ ” He sinks to his knees and covers his face. He hears No-Face-With-A-Face stalk toward him, pulling him up by the scruff of his neck and flinging him against the wall. The breath is knocked out of him and he crumples in a heap on the ground. No-Face-With-A-Face is coming. He scrambles back, blood, tears, and dirt streaking his face. “No,” he whispers, awash with cold terror. “No, please…”

 

“I hate you,” No-Face-With-A-Face says coolly. “You’ve done the world an injustice and I’ll help you pay for it.” He cackles. “With a finger or two. A hand or two. An arm or a leg. You’ll pay for this. You’ll pay for creating someone like me.”

 

Ken keeps whispering _no_ and _please_ and _someone help me_. But no one hears him. From now on, no one will.

 

* * *

  

Ken spends his days locked in a tiny little white room in the basement of his captor’s house. His captor is Yamori, a successful real estate agent, as his friends upstairs call him when he invites them over for drinks and karaoke. He is Jason, a bloodthirsty madman, when he comes down to give Ken hell.

 

Jason has issues. Ken understands this, because even at nine years old, he understands that people do not cut or maim or torture or drown or suffocate or burn nine year olds. If they do, then Ken is not aware, and he finds truth a stupid, irrelevant thing. Jason hates children. He says this repeatedly as he finds various ways to make Ken suffer without killing him. He knows, however, that his fate is decided. It has been, since the moment he’d seen the bloodstains of the unfortunate, nameless boy he has taken the place of.

 

* * *

  

The worst is the food.

 

Jason gives him the best scraps from his fridge upstairs, if only to taunt him. If only to tell him, _This is the best you will ever have; this is the freedom that lies outside this cell that you can only ever taste and you can never truly own_. Jason watches him eat. It’s unnerving. It makes him eat less. Jason doesn’t like it when he doesn’t finish his food. He gets kicked, he gets burned, he gets thrown around for it until he lowers himself down and licks the last of his rice off of his plate like a dog.

 

Then sometimes, when Jason is in a foul mood, he steps on Ken’s stomach and it all comes back up in ugly globs of vomit. Jason makes him clean up after himself with only his tongue.

 

* * *

  

Days pass. Or has it only been hours? He doesn’t know. The white, windowless room has his sense of time askew. Has his sense of space askew. Has his sense of existence askew. He doesn’t know, doesn’t know anything at all except the sound of the door unlocking when it is time to die again.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s a habit Jason has. Cracking his knuckles with his thumb. Mostly his forefinger.

 

* * *

 

There are men that Yamori talks to upstairs that sometimes ask him what he keeps in the basement. Once, Ken had tried to scream for help when he’d heard them. _Yes! I’m here! Please, please, please help me help me help me help me please_

 

Jason had stuffed his mouth with centipedes and sealed his lips shut with an iron clamp. He hasn’t screamed for help since. It doesn’t matter anyway. The cell is soundproof.

 

* * *

 

 

_Count backwards from 1000 in intervals of seven. I can’t hear you. Say it again. Wrong. Again. Start over. Keep it up. You’re nine, aren’t you? You should know your subtraction._

_Bite your tongue. Stop screaming. Let’s do this one more time._

 

* * *

 

 

Speaking of centipedes, Jason has an odd fascination with the creatures. Oh, he knows they’re poisonous, possibly even fatal for human children who get bitten more than once.

 

This is why he uses them sparingly, maybe once or twice a week, just so Ken knows that he can. He doesn’t tell Ken when he’s going to use them. Sometimes he just pulls one out of a bucket and dangles it in front of Ken until Ken cries himself into blubbering incoherence. He has the antidote for the venom, and keeps it on hand because it would be such a shame if Ken died too soon, just because of a stupid insect bite.

 

Ken just wants the sensation of crawling in his mouth and throat to stop.

 

* * *

 

 

When he’s older and he’s sure that he is no longer nine years old, but possibly ten, Jason starts doing something new. One day, he just sits down in front of Ken, breathing hard, cheeks flushed, sweat running down his square jaw.

 

And then he fucks Ken. Hard.

 

Cruelly. Painfully. And Ken knows better than to scream so he bites down on his knuckles until they bleed.

 

This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong, wrong, wrong _wrongwrongwrong w r o n g w         r           o           n          g_

 

Ken passes out before Jason finishes, his thoughts breaking up into little fragments that he knows he can’t ever pick up and put back together if he wants to stay alive.

  

* * *

 

 

_… 832… 825… 818… 811… 804… 797… 790………………_

_7 8  3…… 7   7   6………_

 

* * *

 

 

At some point in time, Ken notices his fingernails and his toenails have given up growing. Jason has pulled them out every single time they get “ripe” so he’s always dreaded it, gnawing at them until they stayed stubs, but sometimes, Jason is content with stubs.

 

When he sees that they’ve stopped growing completely, he lets out a sob. It sounds like broken glass. Other kids are happy when they get their first bike or when they get a new manga. Ken is happy because he doesn’t need to bite his nails anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

When Jason is in a good mood, he only whips Ken until Ken collapses the seventh time. Not the tenth or thirteenth. Ken looks forward to these days, but he does little to expect them. He doesn’t expect much anymore. He just focuses on the next breath that fills his lungs because that’s all that he’ll be hanging on to for the next few seconds until he needs to breathe again.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s times when Jason kind of breaks off in the middle of things. He mutters incoherent things about his parents. Or lack thereof.

 

* * *

 

 

_335\. 328. 321. 314. 307. 300. 293. 286. 279. 272. 265._

 

* * *

 

 

He’s… maybe he’s ten now. Or eleven? He doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. He’s just waiting to die. But it’s different now, than before. The sensation of wanting death, of being psychologically dead, is no longer as simple as it used to be. Now he wants to die, but he wants to bring someone down with him. He doesn’t want to go to Hell, because his mother and father are obviously in Heaven, and he wants to go there too. But he thinks, maybe God will forgive him for wanting to kill someone like Jason. There’s got to be some leeway somewhere in God’s book, right? Jason took everything from Ken. Ken deserves to see him on his speedy way to the world beneath their feet.

 

But he’s nine (ten?). What can he do? He waits. He waits and watches. His mother’s death flashes behind his eyes sometimes. She was weak back then. He is not the same. He will not be the same. Oh, he’ll die alright. But he won’t die quietly.

 

And so he waits.

 

* * *

  

34, 27, 20, 13, 6… Do I stop? Can I stop?

 

_You’re funny. Guess you haven’t learned them yet. Let me teach you about negative numbers, kid. Then you can count back up to a negative thousand._

 

* * *

 

 

The chance comes when Yamori is entertaining guests. He’s not careful. He gets badly drunk. He stumbles into the basement, maybe intending for a quickie before he goes back upstairs.

 

Ken has watched for days (Months? Years?), looking out at the tiny slit he sees that leads out of the little white cell whenever Jason opens and closes the door. He’s seen a greater, darker room beyond, with a menagerie of equipment hanging on the walls. Nearest to the door of his cell are the knives. He sees them. Drinks them in ever time he does. Imagines slicing Jason’s throat open with that particularly cruel-looking one with its jagged teeth.

 

Tonight, when Jason opens the door, looking inebriated enough for hell, Ken enacts his plan. He slips out of the ropes he has been trying desperately to get out of for the past five hours since he heard Yamori’s friends upstairs, at the small price of some flesh from his wrists, hands, ankles and heels. The pain hardly matters. It’s a mere buzz in his brain, like a television on the lowest volume setting.

 

Jason reacts slowly, his drunken stupor the one miracle Ken has been waiting for. He’s lithe and agile, ducking in between Jason’s legs and going straight for the knife he’s always craved to hold.

 

“ _You little shi_ —” Jason never finishes his sentence. Ken doesn’t let him finish his sentence. He actually doesn’t even know he’s stabbing the man’s throat out before he hears himself laughing and he hears feet stumbling down the stairs.

 

“Yamori, where are ya—oh God. Oh _God_. Shit. Shit, call a fucking ambulance!”

 

“Naki, I think he’s dead. Did that kid—”

 

The feet scramble over themselves to get upstairs. Ken can still hear the voices, though.

 

“Call the fucking police then, retard! Don’t just fucking stand there!”

 

“Don’t you call me a retard, you’re the one with the fucking phone in your hands, asshole.”

 

“You’re a rude shit when you’re drunk.”

 

“Will you two _shut up and call the police already?_ ”

 

Ken is busy trying to separate Jason’s body from his head. It’s tricky work, and he learns much more about human anatomy than any kid his age should, he’s sure. He’s trying to cut bone with the knife. Sawing. Back. And forth. Back. And forth. He sings softly to himself as he works. A song his father used to sing to him at night.

 

[ _Beyond these tears, my flickering smile…_ ]

 

Feet are running around upstairs. Someone is yelling about murder. Murder? Oh, perhaps they’re talking about Ken.

 

[… _holds the promise of love from the beginning of time._ ]

 

The police arrive quickly. Ken thinks they’d been waiting near the area for them to come so soon. He hasn’t even finished the song yet.

 

[ _Even though I’m alone now with our yesterdays…_ ]

 

There. He’s finished. Jason’s unseeing eyes stare holes into him. He drops the knife and stares right back, his mouth singing the words he only hears in his head.

 

[… _this day is born aglow like the first time we spoke._ ]

 

The police train guns at him, but he doesn’t move when they approach warily, obviously repulsed by the scene. They grab him, take him up with them and try to talk to him. _What’s your name? How old are you? How long have you been here? Do you want some hot chocolate? Let’s talk about what happened back there._

He just keeps on singing, because as he does, he can see his parents’ smiles. He can hear their laughter.

 

[ _Somehow I lost you among all my memories…_ ]

 

The rest of the song fades slowly, melting beneath the cacophony of sirens that split through the midnight air.

* * *

 

 

Ken likes the doctor who says he’s going to help him. He really does. Doctor Kanou is always warm, always friendly, always ready to lend him a hand. He asks Ken how his day has gone, even though he knows that Ken doesn’t do much except sit in the exact same position for hours, staring at the exact same spot on the wall for just as long. For the first few months, Kanou hadn’t been able to anything out of him. Then, slowly, surely, Ken finds himself getting coaxed out of his shell with mug after mug of hot chocolate.

 

“How are you feeling today, Ken?” Kanou asks him gently.

 

Today, Ken feels as though he will indulge the man. He fingers his white bangs. Marie Antoinette Syndrome, Kanou called it once. Well, whatever it is, he hates it and he wishes someone would just shave him bald. It reminds him of how different he is from other people. It reminds him that he is a killer.

 

“Have some chocolate. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

 

It actually does. There’s something about it that makes him feel warmer inside. It makes his thoughts fog up a little, which is good. Really good, because that way he can’t remember what he’s done, can’t remember the nightmares he gets every night. The chocolate makes him sigh a little. When he was younger, his parents—

 

A sharp pain stabs into his brain and the thought of his parents fades with the earsplitting noise of microphone interference. He drops the mug of chocolate and collapses. He can’t breathe. He can’t see. He wishes he could die right then and there. He already thinks he’s dead, but then he’s being rolled onto his back and he feels something pierce through his chest.

 

There are voices. Voices. He’s awake. He sits up with a loud gasp, panting, gulping in air like it’s water and he hasn’t drunken any in days.

 

“… like that won’t work.”

 

“You administered the adrenaline?”

 

Kanou is standing at the door, talking to another person. Ken can’t see who it is. His head lolls back and he drops to the floor, wishing he could stop his heart again.

 

“I did. He’ll be fine. Can’t let him loose now. I’m so _close_.”

 

“Well, we’re counting on you.”

 

His vision fades to black.

 

* * *

 

 

Apparently, someone had overheard that conversation because soon enough, Ken is being carted off to another place. On his way out of Ota Mental, he catches a glimpse of Kanou being pushed into a police car. He looks away, feels nothing but drained. Adults are trying to comfort him, but he’s given up on listening. They all say the same things anyway.

 

_It’s going to be alright. Don’t you worry. We’ll help you. We’ll help you. We’ll help you. We’ll help you._

 

That’s what Kanou said too, with a smile on his face and a mug of sweet lies in his hand.

 

* * *

 

 

The orphanage is a little better. Ken freaks out the other kids and he knows it. He doesn’t mind that they keep their distance. He doesn’t need them. Doesn’t need their petty little fights and insincere offers of friendship in exchange for a few handfuls of candy and junk food. He just cracks a knuckle or two and remains content with his loneliness.

 

The lady in charge, Miss Rize Kamishiro, is a kind woman who’s terrifying when angered. She seems to dote on Ken, finds him a sorry little thing who needs extra special attention. Ken doesn’t like that, but it’s not like Miss Rize is doing anything cruel to him. Sure, she has those days when she snaps and bites like a rabid bitch, but all in all, it’s an okay relationship between a woman who’s always wanted a son, and a boy who doesn’t really care either way.

 

Miss Rize calls in some doctors and they’re not so bad. They all feed Ken the same lie wrapped in the same pretty little boxes. _We’re going to help you, Ken. We’re going to get you back on your feet in no time._

 

* * *

 

 

There’s another kid in the orphanage with the same eyes as Ken. They’re haunted by a past that can’t be explained by words alone.

 

His name is Juuzou, and he is the only one who dares go near Ken while the others cower in a corner. Ken is working on a nice crayon portrait of a headless Jason. Juuzou reaches out and draws a knife stuck deep into Jason’s stomach with green crayon. He grabs a red crayon and colors in the blood spurting from the wound. Ken laughs. They laugh together. From then on, they are friends.

 

* * *

 

 

“Ken, I have an idea,” Juuzou says from the top bunk suddenly, as they are lazily lounging in their shared room (Juuzou had nicely asked Ken’s former roommate to switch with him; the other boy now runs away crying every time they meet).

 

Ken is reading a book by flashlight (a very fascinating one about the human body). He doesn’t exactly want to be bothered. “What?”

 

“Let’s go to the kitchen.”

 

“The kitchen? Why?”

 

“You’ll see.” Juuzou jumps nimbly off the top bunk and places hands on his hips. “Let’s go!”

 

“I’m reading,” Ken says pointedly.

 

Juuzou rolls his eyes and grabs Ken by the arm, tugging him off his bed. “Let’s. _Go_.”

 

There is no arguing with Juuzou when he wants to do something. Ken whines about finishing his book, but the other boy (actually, he isn’t even sure if Juuzou _is_ a boy) is insistent and physically stronger. Finally, Ken caves in and they sneak off into the kitchens. It’s several hours past nightfall and the kitchen staff has already left for the night. It’s dark and deathly quiet.

 

Juuzou leads Ken straight to the closets to one side of the room. He opens it, pulls out one of the many drawers, and emerges brandishing a long, steel knife for cutting meat. The boy grins and drops it into Ken’s hands.

 

“Juuzou, what are you—”

 

“Fun,” he murmurs happily. “Fun, fun, fun. Knives are fun, Ken, don’t you know?”

 

“I know,” Ken says, feeling a little indignant. “But if Miss Rize catches us—”

 

“Miss Rize this, Miss Rize that,” Juuzou wags a finger at Ken. “Listen to me for once. She’s a terrible woman. All women are terrible, terrible beasts.”

 

“My mom wasn’t a terrible beast,” Ken retorts harshly.

 

“All women except your mom,” Juuzou amended, returning to his dive for knives.

 

“Hm.”

 

They leave the kitchen with eight knives each. Four in each hand, held between the spaces of their fingers. They tiptoe back into their room and years later, Ken is still unsure how they were able to do so without dropping a single knife. They return to their room and lay the knives out on the bottom bunk. Ken flicks on the light. Juuzou skips over to the dresser and pulls out a marker. He draws a large bulls-eye on the wall.

 

“Okay,” says Ken. “Now what?”

 

“Now,” Juuzou picks up a knife, twirling it deftly in his hands, “we do _this_.”

 

He sends it flying across the small room at the bulls-eye. It lands with a heavy thunk right in the center and makes Juuzou squeal like one of the girls when she gets a new doll for her birthday. Even Ken feels a rush of adrenaline at the successful shot.

 

“Can I try next?”

 

They take turns throwing at the bulls-eye and Juuzou explains that his “Mama” had taught him to be adept at such things, for the entertainment of her patrons. Juuzou is skilled whereas Ken is clumsy, but by the fourth and final knife, he feels like he has gotten the hang of things.

 

This is also when Miss Rize and a few other grown-ups barge into the room, their faces twisted in fury and horror. Two other children hide behind them, ones Ken recognizes as the pair that sleeps next door, on the other side of the wall. Juuzou and Ken are put into separate rooms that night and aren’t allowed outside for weeks while the staff figures out how to deal with them.

 

* * *

  

In the midst of weeks of solitude, Ken has unlikely guests. They are… odd, to say the least. The man wears a leopard-print suit and the woman sports a skin tight, red dress, a white fur scarf around her shoulders, and a hat that looks vaguely like a stuffed wombat.

 

“Oh,” says the man, his eyes locked on Ken, who stands at the window, one hand on the sill and the other holding a book about a man running to his death. “ _Oh_. My dear, I think we’ve found the one.” He turns to her. “What do you think?”

 

“Yes,” she breathes, absolutely mesmerized by Ken. “He’s the one. Oh my, just look at his _hair_.”

 

Ken scowls and turns away from them. He doesn’t like them, he decides.

 

“Miss Kamishiro!” the man calls over his shoulder at the open door. “We’ll take him!”

 

Miss Rize’s protests reach Ken’s ears. “But—Mr Tsukiyama, I hardly think he’ll be a good—”

 

“Nonsense, woman!” The man bristles. “Never judge a book by its cover!” Suddenly he’s in Ken’s face, smiling widely. “Now, son. Would you like to come home with us?”

 

 _Son_. Ken hasn’t been called that in… so long. His father… Somehow, he finds himself shrugging, and while the couple dissolves into a series of triumphant hoots and clapping, he hums to himself. He hums an old tune.

 

[ _Though we slipped apart like sunlight through the leaves, the promise of love will live on eternally._ ]

 

Ken wishes he could mean every line of the song, but whenever he thinks it, the words ring hollow and the only thing that matters is that it sounds the same as it always has. It’s an insult, he realizes, to the memory of the person who first sang it to him, years and years and years before.

 

He bites his tongue as he’s ushered out of his room and he vows never to sing that song ever again. It settles in the pit of his stomach and there it stays, until its rot eats him from the inside out.

 

[ _Even though I’m alone now, my tomorrows are boundless like the kindness you showed me, hidden in the night._ ]


	10. What I've Become

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. KANEKI BACKSTORY PART TWO  
> It’s amazing! We’ve made it to 10 chapters! Thanks, everybody! *parties*  
> Listen to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 (for mood and max feels effect).  
> I have more things to say, but I’ll say them later. For now, enjoy the fucking feels.  
> (the age gap between Shuu and Kanae is 2 years instead of 7, if you guys don’t mind)

The Tsukiyama family lives outside of Tokyo in a grand manor that extends beyond what Ken himself can make out from his vantage point behind the tall window in the living room. The butler kindly explained to him a few days ago that the Tsukiyama family has always been a wealthy one, since generations past. They’d begun as a simple farmers’ clan, but had steadily expanded their property and influence until they were an undeniable authority in the region. Several years and successful enterprises later, they are at the top of their game, with hardly any competition in what they do best: food and fine dining.

 

Ken is, to say the least, uninterested. He bears the butler’s stories without paying much attention. All he knows is that he doesn’t belong here, in these grand halls, luxuriously decorated rooms, and meals fit for the Japanese emperor himself. He knows what the servants think of him. _Touched by the devil_ , they whisper. _White-haired freak of nature._

 

He knows all that. He knows. It doesn’t make him feel any better.

 

* * *

  

“Ken,” says Father—that’s what Mr Tsukiyama says to call him, “your big brothers have arrived from school. We’d like for you to meet them.”

 

“They’ll be spending the whole of winter break with you,” adds Mother—the notion of calling anyone else but Mom “Mom” sickens him, but if it’s “Mother,” then perhaps he can endure it. “We’ll introduce you over dinner, alright, dear?”

 

He doesn’t reply. He simply stays where he is, on his new, plush bed, reading a book. Mother and Father leave him alone and he likes that. He likes being left alone. But what did they say again? Something about brothers? He doesn’t quite like the sound of that.

 

* * *

  

Two. There are two.

 

The older one is fifteen. His name is Shuu and he’s a… He’s an odd one, just like Mother and Father. Although he isn’t as loud or flashy as they are and it seems like he stumbles over himself more often than not, he appears to want to get there.

 

The younger one is thirteen. His name is Kanae and he’s significantly less noisy than his older brother Shuu. He’s distant, so distant in fact that Ken thinks his mind and soul are in a totally separate dimension from the one his body exists in. The only time that he looks like he’s alive is when he’s with Shuu and his eyes follow his older brother around like he’s some sort of god.

 

Between the two, Ken doesn’t know what to think. He just hopes they don’t disturb him when he reads his books.

 

* * *

 

 

“Funny book you’ve got there,” Shuu says to him one day. “What’s it about?”

 

Ken looks up, scowls at him and makes a point by turning his back to the older boy. He doesn’t want to be disturbed. He just wants to read in peace until he grows old and all his hair falls out and he dies.

 

“ _Sputnik Sweetheart_ ,” Shuu reads aloud from where he’s squatting to read the cover of Ken’s book. Ken cries out in surprise—when did he even _get_ there?—and holds the book up high above his head. Shuu smiles at him. “It sounds like a marvelous title. Whatever could it be about?”

 

“None of your business,” Ken snaps at him and gets on his feet. He stalks off, completely intending to abandon Shuu right where he is in the middle of the largest living room in the manor.

 

But Shuu is persistent. He gets up and jogs to catch up with Ken, who tries to quicken his pace. “Ken! Wait! You—” It’s too late for whatever words he wanted to say. Ken has already reached his bedroom. He slams the door in Shuu’s face and hopes that’s enough to curb the older boy’s interests.

 

* * *

 

 

Shuu doesn’t seem to get the message. He finds a way, every single day, to bother Ken. No matter where Ken tries to hide himself, Shuu finds him. Be it a closet in one of the guest rooms on the third floor, or behind the ancient paintings in the attic, or by the old trees near the very edge of the estate, Shuu finds him every time. Days pass this way, and Ken doesn’t find the game of hide-and-go-seek very amusing. Shuu, though, seems to be having the time of his life. He must get incredibly bored at the manor, with only his quiet, worshipper of a brother keeping him company as Mother and Father stay away on business most of the time.

 

Ken finds himself observing Shuu. Studying him. The fifteen-year old is always smiling. It’s a curious smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but is (almost) always ready with a flamboyant remark about how fine the weather is or how wonderful it would be if Ken would deign to have afternoon tea with him and Kanae. Ken wonders just what on earth goes through his mind. Half the time, he’s messing up his showy lines and blushing when he thinks Ken can’t see him. He’s trying so hard to live up to some unknown standard.

 

 _He’s trying to be like his parents_ , Ken realizes one day and he has to hit himself for being so oblivious to it. Of course Shuu was trying to be as flashy as his parents. Who else on this manor even has that sort of flair?

 

When the realization hits him, it changes… not a lot of things. Or, it changes something. Some miniscule thing. Ken doesn’t want to know what it is.

 

* * *

  

Shuu is obsessive-compulsive. He wants everything to be in order, everything to be in the right place at the right time. When things aren’t in order or when they’re in the slightest disarray, he starts… cooking.

 

It’s the strangest thing. Ken’s never seen anything like it. Shuu throws himself into projects when he knows or even _feels_ like things aren’t going to work the way he wants them to. He doesn’t stop for hours, even _days_ at a time. Kanae once sat through one of these episodes with Ken.

 

“He does this at least four or five times a month,” he explains without Ken asking him to. “When we’re at the apartment in Tokyo”—he says this proudly, like living with Shuu is a glorious achievement in and of itself—“I have to drag him out by his heels to go to school.”

 

Imagining Kanae dragging Shuu by his heels to school is enough to tempt Ken into smiling. But he stops himself in time. There is no reason—no _real_ reason—for him to smile here. If he even tries to smile, it means he is, to some extent, _happy_ and if he is, it is an insult to the memory of earlier years—years filled with true happiness.

 

* * *

 

 

“Why don’t you ever smile, Ken?” Shuu asks the day before Christmas Eve. He is worn out, black shadows cradling his eyes, testaments to the two days he spent cooking everything from bratwurst to sweet and sour pork when the servants just could not get his instructions for the Christmas décor right. Tonight, they are sitting by the fireplace, trying to keep warm. There are heaters in their rooms, but for some reason, they silently agree that sitting by the crackling hearth is better. Kanae has long fallen asleep between them, curling up against his older brother.

 

Perhaps it is the warmth of the flames licking his skin beneath his sleeves, but Ken finds himself comfortable enough to tell Shuu things he normally will not.

 

“I think I was only _really_ happy when my parents were still alive,” he says, picking at the fur carpet in between his socked feet. “So I don’t smile anymore because if I do, it’d be like saying I’m happy now, like I was then. Which I’m not and never will be.”

 

“Heavy thoughts for one so young,” Shuu comments sagely.

 

“You’re one to talk—you’re just fifteen and you talk like your old man,” Ken shoots back.

 

The older boy looks down at him and a strange expression crosses his features before he turns back to the flickering flames. “They have so many expectations of me,” he says quietly—so quietly that Ken has to strain to hear him. “I’m their only real son in this house and I’m the eldest one. I have to live up to everything they expect of me.”

 

“What do you mean, you’re the ‘only one’? There’s Kanae, right?”

 

Shuu shakes his head. “Kanae is adopted, just like you,” he says. “His real name is Kanae von Rosewald. Half-Japanese, half-German. His family and mine were on very good terms. Then, one day, seven or eight years ago, his family’s summer cottage by the Rhine caught fire. He was the only one who survived. My parents didn’t hesitate to take him in.”

 

The fire suddenly looks threatening and every crack, every pop it makes, sends a thin line of fear snaking through Ken’s bones. He shivers slightly and looks back at Kanae’s sleeping form. He notices only now that the boy’s nose is narrower and more refined than the average Japanese nose and sees the faintest sprinkle of freckles across his cheeks. Things he would never have noticed if not for what Shuu said.

 

“I always thought they chose me because I looked like a circus freak,” Ken murmurs. “Because of my hair and… things that the orphanage told them.”

 

Surprisingly, Shuu laughs. It echoes throughout the cavernous living room that is dark except for the dancing shadows cast along the walls by firelight. “Mother and Father _do_ have strange tastes,” he admits. “You’ve seen their collections, haven’t you?”

 

Ken nods to the affirmative. He _has_ wandered through those rooms filled with myriad souvenirs and trinkets from the Middle East, India, Europe, South America, and the Pacific. It seemed to him that Mother and Father had gone through a lot of trouble to acquire the oddest, weirdest things the world could offer them. He’d thought, the realization coming to him in the late hours of the night, that they’d only chosen him from all the other orphans because he himself was one of those things. A souvenir from furthest reaches of sanity. A trinket of innocence tainted and broken beyond repair.

 

“But they didn’t choose you _just_ because you were different from the others,” Shuu tells him. “Of course, being different is always good to them. They love uniqueness and always encourage me—us to stand out from the crowd. Otherwise, we’d be nothing. Still, as I have said, it’s not the full reason they chose you. I hope you don’t think I’m being impertinent, but please allow me some of my… conjectures.”

 

“Go ahead.”

 

“They chose you because they saw something in you that nobody else could.”

 

Ken frowns. “What? What do you mean?”

 

Shuu shifts his position and lifts Kanae’s head onto his lap. “I do not know what they saw,” he says solemnly. “I can only guess at it. But whatever it was, they knew it was there, and it outraged them that nobody else could see it the way they did. If I recall correctly, you were being isolated from the other children, yes?”

 

“Yeah, but that was—”A pang of melancholy and guilt hits Ken and he stops himself short. _That was because Juuzou and I were…_ Juuzou. He hasn’t thought about him once since he arrived here. Where is he now? Has he been adopted yet? Or is he still sitting, alone, in his room in the orphanage, singing his “Mama’s” lullabies to himself? Ken tries to distract himself by watching the fire. It looks dimmer than before.

 

“Whatever the case,” Shuu says gently, “they wanted to give you a home where you would be appreciated for what you are, instead of one that tries to stamp out what makes you different.”

 

The notion is unbelievable. “How can they want to appreciate someone like me?” Ken says, bewildered. “I’m…” _A murderer._ _A demonic child. A white-haired freak_.

 

“You’re you, Ken.” Shuu catches his eyes and Ken sees the flames reflected in his irises. “You’re no one else, but you.”

 

The words offer him little comfort, but there it is anyway. Comfort. He looks back at the fireplace. “One of these days,” he says slowly, “I’m going to lose control. I haven’t yet. But it happens. I don’t know when it happens exactly, but I know it has before, and I just… I just want to warn you before it does.”

 

Beside him, he feels Shuu nod. “I’ll take care to remember your warning.”

 

The fire is dying down to embers. The older boy shakes Kanae awake, tells him it’s time to go to bed. Ken watches as the fire sputters and breathes its last before he gets up and heads for his bedroom. His feet can feel the cold seeping in through woolen sock but the rest of him doesn’t.

 

He feels, for the first time since walking into that manor, inexplicably warm.

 

* * *

 

 

Half a year passes.  
  
Ken begins his private tutoring. Mother and Father asked him last Christmas if he wanted to go to real school, meet real people, make real friends. He could stay at Shuu’s and Kanae’s apartment. He could go to Kanae’s middle school. Ken answered that no, he’d rather stay at home and read to his heart’s content. And so the decision was made for him to be homeschooled.

 

 _What about the arts?_ they asked him. Does he want to learn to play an instrument? Does he want to learn to sing? To paint? To draw? Ken says no to all these things (most vehemently, to singing). But because Mother is a very insistent woman, he agrees to scant violin lessons. Shuu himself is adept at the instrument, and offers to give him one-on-one lessons in addition to the hired tutor.

 

Ken doesn’t know how to say no to Shuu anymore. Something has changed between them since that night by the fireplace, and Mother and Father can see it. It makes them smile and cast each other knowing glances as the family shares breakfast at the small round table (because Mother and Father hate eating at the huge dinner hall when it’s just the five of them anyway).

 

Somewhere along the way, Ken discards the idea of dyeing his hair black (because, yes, he has been considering it for a while now).

 

* * *

 

 

One year has passed. Then two.

 

Ken has had a few of his own “episodes” and it takes five or six servants to put him down. One or two maids have already resigned because of him, fearing for their lives. Shuu is always the one who can calm him down singlehandedly. All he needs to do is put a hand on Ken’s head and whisper, “It’s going to be all right. I am here and so is Kanae. Mother and Father are here. We are all here for you. We will never leave you alone.”

 

Mother and Father never once consider taking Ken to a doctor. Never. It fills Ken with so much gratitude and, even, love for the gaudy couple. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, his heart, which has curled up in on itself, is being unfolded.

 

* * *

  

Another year passes.

 

The phone call arrives in the summer.

 

Ken is busy reviewing his algebra and Kanae is working on Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, with a little accompaniment from Shuu. The family butler strides into the room, a grim expression tarnishing his usually stoic face. Ken looks up as he makes straight for Shuu and whispers something in his ear.

 

He doesn’t fail to notice how Shuu’s eyes widen and how he struggles to keep from screaming. Covering his mouth with one hand, he nods curtly to the butler and puts his violin and bow aside. He excuses himself and the two of them hurry off and out of the room. Kanae pauses and suddenly the room is plunged into total silence. He casts Ken a frown but Ken only shrugs. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s not going to pretend he knows. But the chill running down his spine begs to differ.

 

* * *

  

This is the second time Ken has been to a funeral.

 

Unlike the first time, he doesn’t scream and try to rip to shreds everything he sees the moment it registers that the ones in the framed photographs surrounded by burning incense are his parents. That had been the second actual funeral for his parents, because someone apparently thought that having another one that he could attend was a good idea for "closure." Back then, the sorrow had been wave upon storming wave of hot knives stabbing into him from all sides. This time, the sorrow creeps along the border of his mind, prowling, waiting to enter, should he even let up his defenses a single millimeter. Sorrow is a hulking beast, padding back and forth, grinning ominously from just outside what he can feel. Everyone in attendance can feel its presence, radiating from the black clothes they wear and the woebegone elegies and prayers delivered in front.

 

It had been a plane crash. A small, private plane flying over the Bhutanese jungles. Engine failure, investigations claimed. Human error. As if getting to the conclusion of things would alleviate the feelings that have everyone moving around like ghosts. As if knowing what killed these two kind, wonderful people would change the fact that they were, indeed, dead.

 

Ken sits at the very back of the room—the only Japanese-style one in the entire manor—and glances over at Shuu, who sits tall, a stony expression on his face. Kanae is sniffling and hiccupping, eyes red with tears that haven’t stopped falling since the day they heard what happened. People offer them condolences before they leave. Most of these things are directed at Shuu and Kanae, not Ken, because the Tsukiyama family had outright accepted him, thereby forcing others to accept him and now, with Mother and Father gone, they see no reason not to shun the boy with snow-white hair and dead eyes.

 

Shuu doesn’t seem to see anything. He moves mechanically, with scripted replies and gestures that Ken is sure he doesn’t know he’s doing. When Shuu gives Kanae to a maid to wash up, Ken looks around to make sure no one is watching and slides a hand over the older boy’s fingers. They’re deathly cold. Shuu’s eyes slide down to his hand and his lips quiver with words he can’t say aloud.

 

“It’s okay,” Ken says softly. “I’m here. Kanae’s here. We’re all here for you. We won’t leave you alone.”

 

There’s no reply. But the wetness that falls and splashes on the back of Ken’s hand is enough.

 

* * *

 

 

“But I don’t _want_ to leave!” Kanae howls, shrieking, pulling out his hair by the roots. “I want to stay _here_ , with my big brother Shuu!” It’s unbecoming of a sixteen-year old to be crying and throwing a tantrum like a brat, but Kanae doesn’t care about things like that, Ken knows.

 

The two adults who have come to whisk him off back to Germany look exasperated, but they also look determined. They flew over twelve hours to get here and weren’t about to leave with nothing. One look at Shuu and Ken knows that he knows that too.

 

“Mr Tsukiyama,” one of the adults—a woman—says in pinched Japanese. “We have the documents. His aunt is begging for him to come home. Do not deprive him of this.”

 

“Your parents only took him in on the premise that he had no other blood relatives left,” added the other adult—a man. “They agreed that should at least one be found with the legitimate papers to prove it, Kanae would be brought back to Germany to live with them.”

 

“I don’t want to leave!” Kanae screams again. “I’m not leaving my big brother Shuu, you bas—!”

 

Shuu silences him with a single, grave look. He looks back up at the man and woman who’ve come to take a third of what’s left of the Tsukiyama family. “She is his real aunt?” he inquires, placing two hands on the table, lacing his fingers together like a barrier guarding his heart.

 

“Yes,” the woman says. “In my bag, I have official records. Would you like to—”

 

“Will she take care of him?” Shuu talks over her.

 

“ _Yes_ ,” she says, bristling at being interrupted. “She is his _aunt_ , for God’s sake. She is good woman.” Her Japanese only gets worse when she’s angered, Ken notes.

 

“I can vouch for the lady,” says the man. “I’ve met her, and she’s the sweetest thing you’ll ever see east of Berlin. I guarantee Kanae will have the time of his life with her.”

 

“No, I wo—” Kanae begins.

 

Shuu leans back and Ken sees that he’s made a decision. “All right,” he says. “But on one condition.”

 

“Name it,” the woman says brusquely.

 

“That he be able to write to me every month, telling me how he is. If he gives me one word about being hurt, he’ll come straight back to Japan. Is that clear?”

 

The woman looks like she’s ready to argue, but the man puts a pacifying hand on her arm. “No problem,” he says calmly. “I’ll see to it that he writes every month. As a matter of fact, I’ll bring his letters to the post myself!” He laughs merrily, but no one joins him and his laughter dies like the flames in the fireplace that night three years ago, back when things seemed to be getting better. He clears his throat. “Well, erm, I’ll be giving you a few things to sign, Mr Tsukiyama, in place of your parents.”

 

“Of course,” Shuu says stiffly.

 

Ken glances down at his lap and his heart aches. He hates seeing that look on Shuu’s face.

 

The one that reflects what’s been utterly broken inside.

 

* * *

  

Ken turns sixteen in a quiet way. Everything about life in the manor is quiet now, subdued, except for Shuu. The nineteen-year old seems to be gaining more and more life each day. The servants talk about it jovially. This is good, they say. The master is getting better. Things are getting better. Ken knows the truth is only the total opposite.

 

Shuu is getting worse. Much worse. He’s been cleaning the manor lately. Nonstop. In between taking over his parents’ food empire and small cooking projects of his own, the little tics he used to have are turning into full-blown malfunctions. He hardly sleeps, and his eyes flick around, surveying his surroundings, looking for something to adjust, something to nitpick. The worst part is that he knows what he’s turning into, knows the ugly machine that he’s becoming.

 

He covers it up with theatrics. He talks like Mother and Father, except with more French and Italian nuances than there ought to be. He hugs the servants and greets them so dramatically that Ken has to wince every time. He misses when Shuu was more of a clumsy actor than a pretentious one. At least before, those skills of his were a cry to be noticed and acknowledged. Now, they are the silent screams of grief that plague the deepest psyche of the Tsukiyama manor.

 

The terrifying part? Only Ken can hear them.

 

* * *

  

A few months before Ken turns seventeen, he gathers the courage to ask Shuu for something he knows the older man won’t like.

 

“I’m thinking of going to college,” he says over dinner one day.

 

Shuu glances, automatically, at the two empty seats on his right and the one empty seat on his left. It’s one of his new habits and it makes it impossible for Ken to pretend that things are okay.

 

“Why ever would you wish that, _brother_ _dear_?” Shuu asks sweetly. “Don’t you like staying at home?”

 

Ken can’t bring himself to meet Shuu’s eyes. _I’m not abandoning him_ , he thinks fiercely. _I’m not. I just… need this._ “I like staying here, don’t get me wrong. It’s always quiet and peaceful and I like that,” he says truthfully, “but I think it’s time for me to go out. Meet people, like what Mother and Father said, right?”

 

“So you want to leave me,” Shuu deadpans.

 

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Ken sighs, cracking a knuckle absentmindedly. “I just want to… try and become normal again.”

 

“What of your… illness?” It’s not fair. It’s really not fair how Shuu sneers like that when he knows and when he really does care about Ken.

 

“I’ve called for… help,” Ken answers, unable to keep the defiant tone from his voice. He hates the h-word he just said, but what can he do? He hates it, but he needs it. He hates how he needs it. “They’re coming over next week so we can talk about it. I’ve called universities, too, and some of them are okay with me taking the entrance exams here, with a proctor.”

 

“You’ve _called_ people without asking me beforehand?” Shuu’s nostrils flare and he puts down his utensils with a loud clatter. “You _went behind my back_ , Ken?”

 

“Because I knew you would act like this!” Exasperation. Frustration. The two words alone, by themselves, can’t even begin to describe how Ken feels. “I knew you’d go nuts if I even asked you, and you’d block all the phone calls and I would never have had a chance! Look, Shuu, I just want… to have a normal life again. Don’t take that chance away from me.” It hurts him how much he sounds like the woman who took Kanae away. _Don’t deprive him of this_ , she said.

 

“Are you implying that life here is not, how you say, _normal_?” Shuu accuses him. “You know that is an insult, Ken, to Mother and Father. This is how we have always lived.”

 

“They _wanted_ me to go to school, Shuu!” Ken protests. “They asked me if I wanted to live with you and Kanae in Tokyo and go to real school. Don’t you remember that?”

 

“No, I do _not_ ,” Shuu hisses. “I remember nothing of the sort. I remember nothing that allows you the right to abandon me.”

 

“I’m not abandoning you, Shuu.” Again, another sigh. “How many times do I have to tell you that for you to believe me?”

 

“As many times as you think it will take, but I will not be shaken.” The look in his eyes is cold as a frostbitten statue. “I won’t allow it. I won’t allow you to leave.”

 

“Please, Shuu, don’t act like a baby,” Ken says, harsher than he means to. “You know I need this. You need it, too, whether you like it or not.”

 

Shuu aims a silent glare at Ken and stands up, dinner forgotten. He leaves the dining room and doesn’t come back. It’s childish to end a fight this way, but Ken knows that it hasn’t truly ended. Not yet.

 

* * *

 

 

Things are looking bleak for Ken’s college applications, thanks to Shuu’s interference. He does try to convince Shuu, time and time again. But the man’s words hold fast and true: _I will not be shaken_.

 

Then, one night, that changes.

 

Shuu comes home late as he normally does these days and though the servants sense nothing out of the ordinary, Ken knows that he is as drunk as is possible for Shuu Tsukiyama to be drunk. It’s like watching a film in mediocre (but somehow decent) quality, when you normally watch it in high definition. You would only know if you’d watched the latter.

 

Ken helps him into his bedroom and once the door closes behind them, Shuu stumbles and the two of them fall onto his bed. Shuu’s breath reeks of wine and the faintest whiff of brandy. Ken tries to push him off.

 

“Shuu. Hey. Get off me. Come on, you’re drunk. Get off!”

 

“No,” the older man says stubbornly, shaking his head beside Ken’s. “If I move, you’re going to leave me alone. I can’t… I won’t… I refuse to move.”

 

“You’re saying that stuff again,” Ken says softly. He raises a hand to ruffle Shuu’s hair. “I’m not going to leave you alone. We’re brothers, aren’t we?”

 

Shuu sniffs, rises, holding himself up with two arms above Ken. “What if I told you,” he says, “that I’ve fallen in love with you?”

 

Ken doesn’t even laugh. It’s too much to be funny. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Shuu,” he says, trying to roll out from beneath the other man. “You’re drunk.”

 

“I’m not drunk!” Shuu says in the way that all drunkards say they aren’t drunk. His head lolls a bit, like he’s having a hard time raising it. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Ken. Since… Ever since you came here… And I saw that book you were reading…”

 

“ _Sputnik Sweetheart_ ,” Ken says despite himself.

 

“Yes, that,” Shuu says, nodding in several directions. “You… That day… You dropped the bookmark. I’ve kept it, you know… It’s always… been with me.”

 

Ken remembers the bookmark. It was just a strip of card paper with a quote he’d written down from the very book he was reading. It was something the character Miu had said—and how could he not have liked Miu? She was virtually a carbon copy of him. Ken had always wondered what had happened to that bookmark. He suddenly remembers that day. How Shuu had chased after him after he’d said, _None of your business._

 

He lets out a soft _oh_. “So that’s what you were trying to tell me back then.”

 

“Mm. May I kiss you?”

 

Ken raises his eyebrows. “No, you ca—” But Shuu has already dipped his head and has already covered Ken’s mouth in a wet kiss that tastes strongly of alcohol. Ken doesn’t quite hate the feeling, but it brings up memories of things he doesn’t want to remember. All he knows is that this is wrong.

 

“Shuu,” he says, after the older man’s lips move from his mouth to his jaw, trailing kisses down to his neck. “Shuu, stop. This isn’t like you.”

 

Shuu stops, looks at him. There’s a dark glint in those eyes. “What do you know about me?”

 

The question stops Ken cold and he almost does nothing to stop Shuu from undressing him. _Almost_. Just as Shuu unbuttons his shirt, he grabs the older man by his wrists. “No. Don’t. You… I don’t want anyone seeing my body. Ever.”

 

“But you’ll let me have you? Even if I can’t see your body?”

 

Ken opens his mouth. It’s dry. No more saliva, like Shuu’s sucked it all out with his one kiss. “As long as you won’t look at me.” What is he saying? Is he really going to…?

 

Shuu presses his lips against Ken’s forehead. “I don’t need to look at you to make love to you.”

 

Again with those words. Those words that sound nothing like the Shuu Ken has known for years. Those words that remind Ken that this is all wrong. He covers his eyes with his arm and waits until Shuu realizes the bitter truth.

 

The older man’s breath catches in his throat when he undoes Ken’s pants and takes Ken into his mouth. He pulls away, straightens, looking stricken. “Am I… Do you not…?”

 

“I don’t know,” Ken admits. “I don’t know. I’ve… It’s always been this way… Just like…”

 

“Just like Miu,” Shuu says, his long, cold, fingers caressing Ken’s flaccid length.

 

“You read it? The book?”

 

“Of course,” he says. “But you’re not like her.”

 

“I…” The words are stuck in Ken’s throat and he knows they’re waiting to escape. They always have been. Ever since that miserable, cold day in a white cell when he lost everything that made him who he was.

 

“Tell me how I can claim you, Ken,” Shuu whispers. There’s desperation in that whisper, like little tiny creatures scratching his throat raw and bleeding. “Tell me how. Please.”

 

Can he? Will he? What is this cruel twist of fate that has them in this very position right now? What _is_ right? What is _wrong?_ What is the thing that’s shoehorned his “brother” Shuu into the space between those two things? Ken doesn’t have the power to know the answer to any of those questions because he himself is a symbol of everything that upturns morality.

 

“Hurt me,” he says, voice muted, hushed by a thousand miles worth of air between him and Shuu. “Make me scream.”

 

And the horror that fills Shuu’s eyes is all that he needs to understand that he has been running away from the simple truth.

 

[ _I was split in two forever_ ,] Miu had said. [ _For all I know, this may have been some kind of transaction. It’s not like something was stolen away from me, because it still exists, on the_ other side _. Just a single mirror separates us from the other side. But I can never cross the boundary of that single pane of glass. Never._ ]

 

Ken Kaneki is, likewise, a person who has been splintered into two beings. The person he _was_ , and the person he _is_. Who he is now is a person twisted beyond understanding. When Shuu holds him that night, things change. But they change in a way that only reminds him that he is not normal. No matter how much he wishes to be normal, there is no other alternative but this pain that fills him with pleasure over the fact that he can _feel_.

 

Without the pain, he can’t feel anything, and he knows nothing. He loses an anchor, and he spins out into space, where he’s cold and truly alone. The pain makes him feel _alive_ just as theatrics make _Shuu_ feel alive. Is there any other way to explain it?

 

Is there any other way to say, _we are alone and we hold each other tightly because we are and because we cannot hold anyone else?_

 

* * *

  

Shuu is a very talented drunk in that he remembers at least four fifths of everything he did when he was under the influence. Ken awakes the next morning to see him lighting a cigarette and watching the morning light filter in through the window. It must be close to noon. The sun is so high.

 

“I called Kamii University,” Shuu says suddenly, like he’s sensed Ken’s woken up. “They’re coming to administer your test next month.”

 

“Oh.” What else can he say? What _should_ he say? “Thank you.”

 

Nodding wordlessly in the way that tells Ken he’s still a little drowsy, he passes the cigarette carton to Ken. “Care for one?”

 

Ken sits up and takes the carton. Pulls out a cigarette. “Lighter?” he asks, cigarette between his teeth. He’s never smoked before, but things have changed since last night and he knows it’s pointless to keep pretending he’s anything more than what he’s always known, deep down.

 

Shuu leans over to press the lit tip of his cigarette against Ken’s. It smolders and burns to life. Ken takes a long drag and snatches the cigarette from his lips when the acrid smoke scratches at his throat. He coughs and wheezes for a while, tears in his eyes. Shuu laughs and rubs circles in his back.

 

“You will get used to it, _mon cher_ ,” he says reassuringly. He eyes Ken. “I need to get used to things too.”

 

Ken doesn’t say anything. He only looks down at the lit cigarette in his hands and hears Miu’s words stuck in his head, playing over and over like a broken record. The words he wrote down on that little bookmark.

 

[ _Which_ me _, on_ which _side of the mirror, is the_ real _me? I have no idea._

 _I was alive in the past, and I’m alive now, sitting here talking to you. But what you see here isn’t really me. This is just a shadow of who I was._ You _are really living. But I’m not. Even these words I’m saying right now sound empty, like an echo._ ]

_Like an echo_ , Ken thinks to himself. Yes, that’s what he is. The echo of a scream that never reached human ears eight years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recently, I’ve remembered that Japanese people start their academic year in the spring instead of fall. I accidentally switched it, resulting in the bbys being in their second semester. I don’t have any plans of changing this, because what’s done is done, and too many things will have to be adjusted, so there it is, just wanted you guys to know that I made a giant mistake and that I’m just going to roll with the punches.


	11. What To Give Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE WAAAHHH  
> This chapter was really hard for me to get right and between side projects and Tumblr, I got kinda distracted.  
> Credits to Haruki Murakami for the lines I lifted from his “Sputnik Sweetheart” in the last chapter. I can’t believe I forgot to put that disclaimer in earlier, but here it is!

The man staggers to his feet, panting. The lopsided grin on his face gives away the pleasure that hasn’t quite left his system yet.

 

“Never thought I had it in me,” he mutters. “You’re exactly what they say you are, huh?”

 

Ken doesn’t return his smile. He licks his lips, getting up from the chair. He walks toward the man, who looks up at him with greedy eyes. _Disgusting_ , he thinks. _But it will do_.

 

There’s a numb buzzing he feels somewhere below the base of his throat. It’s probably supposed to be painful, probably something his old self would cry of. Now, though, it’s nothing but the emptiness he’s gotten to know so well.

 

“So,” he says, setting his jaw, “shall we begin?”

 

* * *

  

On his first day as a college student, Ken gets into a fight.

 

Well, it isn’t so much a fight as it is a one-sided smack-down. He doesn’t even remember what had started it, but something had been sparked and flames had danced in his eyes, turning the world red. Words had been said, taken way too seriously, and suddenly bodies were rolling on the ground and fists were flying and someone was screaming for help.

 

The next thing Ken knows, he’s in the dean’s office and the only sound he can hear is the clock’s second hand, ticking down to his inevitable moment of punishment. When it comes, it comes decisively, like the blade of a guillotine hurtling down toward the necks of the damned.

 

It’s not only the dean who’s in the room. Half of the university’s medical team stands by the walls and the door, looking edgy. The dean sits behind his desk, fingers laced, elbows against the wood. He’s frowning at Ken. It’s a look that clearly says, _This is exactly what I thought would happen_.

 

“Suspension.” The word slices through the air with an ease that makes Ken’s insides boil. “One semester. No missed classes will be counted. You will be responsible for catching up when you return.” The dean narrows his eyes at the word “when.” He doesn’t want Ken to return at all.

 

Ken isn’t about to let himself be intimidated. He isn’t about to give in to the sensation of falling that he feels deep down. He worked so hard to get here, and as soon as he does, he gets himself kicked out at the first opportunity. But that doesn’t matter right now.

 

_Or does it?_

 

He wants to show the dean he isn’t going to be scared into submission.

 

_Get down on your knees and beg for the man’s forgiveness._

 

He doesn’t want to be here.

 

_Then what have you been trying to achieve all this time?_

 

He’s just here to pretend to be normal.

 

_You’re here to become what you’ve always wanted to be._

 

Ken swallows an irritated grunt when he realizes he’s contradicting himself at every turn.

 

“You’re not going to call my guardian?” he asks stiffly. The contradictions are making his temper snap and bite through the bars of the cell he’s trapped it in. He hasn’t fully recovered from his earlier “episode.” The urge to wring someone’s neck is still fresh in his mind.

 

“We already have,” the man replies frostily. “Mr Tsukiyama expressed his disappointments.”

 

Unbidden, a muscle in Ken’s jaw twitches. “In my actions? Or in his absence here?”

 

The silence that follows tells him the answer to that question.

 

* * *

 

When he finally leaves the stuffy room, he walks away from it quickly, trying to put as much distance between himself and it as he can. Head down, teeth gnashing together, voices screaming at each other in his head, he doesn’t know it’s raining until his hair hangs limply, dripping water that runs down his face in rivulets like the tears he isn’t shedding but he knows he should be.

 

The pills burn holes in the pockets of his jeans and he keeps muttering numbers until they make no sense at all. He’s still dangerously close to the edge when he walks past the old, shoddy-looking bakery. The door opens with a soft tinkle of a bell muffled by the sound of the rain pounding against the pavement. Someone taps him on the shoulder and his concentration snaps. His vision turns red again as the stranger brings him into the bakery from the rain.

 

* * *

 

The woman sleeps soundly beneath the covers and Ken watches her quietly, counting the number of times the sheets rise and fall because he can’t really do anything else. He turns on his back and fixes his eyes on the ceiling. He wonders why people still agree to do this sort of thing for him. Or with him. How much is Shuu paying them exactly?

 

Thinking of Shuu makes Ken sit up. He presses a hand to his forehead but it does nothing to alleviate the pain of guilt eating away at him.

 

 _To be hurt and to hurt others._ The two things he’s decided he can’t live without. He’s a sick, twisted thing, after all. Nothing that deserves anything less than a sick, twisted way to live.

 

The woman next to him shifts and the covers fall slightly, baring a shoulder. The moonlight seeping in from the window catches on her skin and that circle of red marks comes up like the top view of a red crown. Ken runs his tongue over his teeth.

 

He can still taste her blood.

 

* * *

 

Ken doesn’t know _what_ he’s doing in the middle of Shuu’s personal kitchen, holding a whisk and a bowl like he understands what they’re for. An open cookbook sits on the counter next to bags of flour and sugar and countless measuring cups.

_I really don’t know what I’m doing._

 

Cookies are supposedly simple. Shuu himself can do them while holding up at least two coherent conversations with business partners who come over unexpectedly. Ken is only starting to understand that they’re not as simple as he was led to believe. After four hours of struggling against the evils of the complex oven timer and doubting the necessity of precise measurements, all he really ends up doing is leaving the kitchen a definitive mess.

 

Tidying up takes the same time it took to mess everything up in the first place. Ken pulls off his exaggeratedly stained apron and flings it in a random direction before sinking into a chair with a sigh. His legs and feet ache after standing and walking around for eight hours, and all for what? Three trays of blackened lumps passing themselves off as cookies. He tries to pick one up, but it’s stuck fast. Trying to pry it from the tray with his nails is a chore he tires of quickly.

 

He settles back into his chair and throws an arm over his eyes.

 

_Can someone tell me what I’m trying to do?_

 

* * *

 

“Ah, it’s you again, Mister!”

 

Ken shifts uneasily from one foot to another when he sees the little girl heading out of the bakery. He still feels guilty after what he almost did to her and the old man last week and he’s not sure how to face her. She doesn’t appear to have this problem though, because she greets Ken with a radiant smile.

 

“Hello again. Hinami, right?” he asks, pocketing his hands. When Hinami nods, he says, “You look like you’re going somewhere.”

 

“Just to buy a few ingredients,” she replies. “Do you want to come inside? It’s getting a little cold and you’re only wearing a sweater.”

 

“Oh, no, I couldn’t—”

 

“Kaneki, wasn’t it?”

 

The old man stands at the door, smiling as kindly as he did the first time Ken entered his bakery. Ken automatically takes a step back, lowering his head.

 

“Kaneki,” the old man says. “Would it be alright if I asked you to do me a favor?”

 

A favor. It’s far more than what Ken owes him and Hinami, but every little thing now counts. It’s not as though he knows what he can do for them on his own without someone else showing him the way. It’s not as though he knows what to do at all. He thought for a fleeting moment that he could change and in an instant, he doubts himself. Can he change? Does he need to?

 

“I don’t mind,” Ken says tentatively. “I have a lot of free time on my hands anyway.”

 

Later, he and Hinami are walking down a street he’s unfamiliar with. He feels uncomfortable, surrounded by strangers’ faces without any real reason to be there other than to accompany a little girl. Hinami is talking fast and enthusiastically about things Ken can’t claim to understand, but somehow it lets his nerves settle. She leads him into store after store, pointing out different kinds of ingredients with energy that never ceases to baffle him.

 

When the two of them manage to make their way through Hinami’s list completely, they start to head back to the bakery.

 

“So, Mister,” Hinami pipes up, “have you given baking a shot yet?”

 

Ken remembers his failure the previous day and reluctantly mumbles to the affirmative.

 

“Really? What did you think of it?”

 

“Confusing,” he says frankly. “Frustrating.”

 

She laughs. “It was like that for me the first time, too,” she tells him. “You try so hard in the beginning and you think you’re getting it right, but then it comes out all wrong. It made me mad and sad and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Then my mom told me that if I gave up, I wouldn’t ever be able to get it right. Baking is… I think she called it ‘trial and error.’ You try and try until you’re happy with what you make.”

 

Ken nods slowly. “Then,” he says, “how do you know if you’re happy with what you made?”

 

“Oh, that’s easy.” She grins. “I know I’m happy when what I’ve made makes another person smile. When you take a bite out of a good cupcake, you would smile too, wouldn’t you? That’s when I know.”

 

He’s amazed. He’d been looking at Hinami for a while now, half-heartedly listening to her chatter on and on about baking. Yet he was never _looking_ at her. Now he is, and he can see that the girl beside him is infinitely more complex than he originally thought. It’s now that he starts to wonder if every person he has ever met is like that—deeper than what he gives them credit for. From the freshman who badmouthed him two weeks ago to the ghosts of his past that he has never truly _looked_ at anymore. Are all of them like that?

 

 _Even if they are_ , he thinks with a bitter taste in his mouth, _does it matter if_ I _think so? Does it matter if I want to?_ Changing into a person who has the right to think that isn’t a simple thing. Besides, he doesn’t even know if he wants to change indefinitely.

 

_‘Baking is… ‘trial and error.’ You try and try until you’re happy with what you make.’_

 

“Hinami,” Ken says, making her turn to him with a questioning look, “will you teach me how to bake a cupcake?”

 

The little girl raises her eyebrows in surprise, but then her mouth spreads wide into a smile Ken has started to find endearing.

 

“Just call me sensei!” she declares cheerily.

 

* * *

 

Ken sighs, smoke easing out from between his lips. Shuu sidles up next to him beneath the covers. Ken notes the shadows that haven’t faded from beneath the older man’s eyes and the pallor that can only be made out in the dim light of the bedside lamp. He puts the recipe book down on his lap and Shuu picks it up.

 

“Curious about desserts, _tesoro_?” he asks.

 

“Just a little.”

 

“Oh? I never quite saw you as the type to be interested in cuisine, much less this sort.”

 

“I thought I could use a new hobby,” Ken says, lowering his cigarette. “I’m suspended until next semester. Not much else to do around here.”

 

Shuu puts the book back down and reaches over to trace circles on Ken’s bare shoulder. “Is that why you’ve been frequenting that bakery instead of staying at home, _mon cher_?” he purrs into Ken’s ear. “With that little girl and that old man?”

 

Ken flinches slightly and his head whirls to face Shuu. Their noses are an inch apart. Then he sighs and turns away. “You’ve been watching me,” he says, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. “And here I was, thinking you hadn’t put a leash on me. Strange of me to hope.”

 

“I assure you, I’ve done nothing underhanded,” Shuu tells him, breath hot against his skin. “You know full well that it is your _condition_ that warrants constant supervision.”

 

“I thought we agreed that I could do what I wanted now, as long as we keep up this…” He doesn’t even know what _this_ is. No, he _does_ know, but he doesn’t want to say it aloud.

 

One word, three letters. Even Shuu knows what he’s so very close to saying.

 

“You wound me,” the older man says, though he sounds far from being wounded and closer to patience being tested. “I’m only doing this because I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”

 

There they are again. The words that bind Ken to Shuu. The words that reassure him that this is all his fault and that all he needs to do is atone for what he’s done, for merely existing and being the way he is. Ken leans away from him to press the cigarette into an ashtray on the bedside table, putting it out. When he turns back to Shuu, his lips are caught in a kiss his body now knows and understands all too well.

 

Shuu pulls away unexpectedly. “You’d best take care not to get carried away, _mon amour_ ,” he whispers. “Forget how long the _leash_ is and you may very well end up in a cage. Do you understand, my sweet Ken? I will never allow you to leave me. I will never.”

 

Is it wrong that Ken’s heart melts for him? Is it wrong that he thinks Shuu has the right to do this? Maybe it is wrong. But what does it matter. He can’t so easily change what he is and as long as he remains this way, with a schism within the depths of his mind, he thinks it’s only right that this goes on. Shuu needs him and he knows he owes the man so much, twisted as it all is now.

 

“I won’t leave you,” Ken finds himself promising. “We’re brothers. We need each other. I won’t leave you.”

 

Shuu says nothing in reply, but somewhere deep within his eyes Ken sees something soften and retreat from view. And for whatever reason, that’s perfectly alright with him.

 

* * *

  

Months pass in relative peace. Ken’s definition of “peace” is, of course, much different from the typical definition, but he keeps his two lives separate with ease. He starts his days with visits to Anteiku, the bakery owned by the old man named Yoshimura. Mornings and afternoons are spent in the kitchen with Hinami, who is surprisingly spartan when it comes to training aspiring bakers.

 

Most nights are spent deep within the reaches of Golden Gai or Roppongi or even the Shinjuku Nichoume area, in bars or clubs where meetings are usually arranged. Shuu frequently accompanies him, just to make things clear with the willing client. Really, Ken doesn’t understand how other people can even stomach what he wants and needs. Himself, he knows well enough, but others? He just doesn’t get it.

 

Two different lives, as separate yet as inseparable as day and night. Two completely contradicting things. Ken knows well enough how ironic it is that his life reflects what’s within him. In the end though, it’s true that what you are inside becomes evident on the outside, no matter how much you try to hide it or run from it.

 

This is just who he is.

 

* * *

 

“Closing?” Ken echoes, his voice as hollow as his heart is fast beginning to feel. “Wait, I don’t understand. Why?”

 

Yoshimura’s eyebrows knit together. He looks tired. So very tired. “This is an old bakery, Kaneki,” he says. “My wife’s family opened it long ago and it was passed down from generation to generation until it came down to her. She was the last of them and so when she passed away…”

 

The old man’s shoulders twitch ever so slightly. “It’s been left to me. But as I’ve said, it’s an old shop. Most of our former patrons have either left or moved on to the newer shops. No one pays us much heed anymore. I no longer… I no longer have the money or the strength to keep up my wife’s work.” Pain etches itself across Yoshimura’s features. “As much as it pains me to admit, I cannot achieve the dream she had for this place.” He smiles sadly as he regards the bakery, lit up by the setting sun outside.

 

“I never did have the skill she had to keep Anteiku alive,” Yoshimura says. “I’m afraid this is it for her dream and mine.”

 

Ken feels a sinking feeling that’s worse than anything he’s ever felt before. It’s a hopelessness and a despair so deep that it terrifies him. He can’t lose Anteiku, he realizes. He absolutely won’t allow this part of him to disappear.

 

“I’ll do it,” he says firmly.

 

“Kaneki, you needn’t—” Yoshimura begins.

 

“You’ve done so much for me already. It’s impossible for me not to want to repay you.” Ken knows all that Yoshimura has endured to keep Anteiku alive. He knows how the old man suffered silently and refused to tell Ken just how sick he really is. He has only ever smiled for Ken, only ever offered him a hot cup of coffee whenever too much of the winter chill seeped into the bakery. “I won’t let Anteiku shut down. If I did, I wouldn’t know how to face Hinami anymore.”

 

Yoshimura looks at Ken for a long moment, his expression unreadable, but then he shakes his head, smiling. “Forgive this old man if he seems a bit presumptuous for a minute,” he says, “but I have absolute confidence that you will keep our dream alive, even for a while longer.”

 

Ken meets Yoshimura’s gaze with a determination that surprises even him. He doesn’t know exactly when Anteiku became so precious to him, but he can see it now. He needs no other explanation, no other reason, besides the kindness Yoshimura and Hinami showed him that rainy September day.

 

* * *

 

By the time Yoshimura is admitted into the local hospital, Ken has already asked Shuu for a favor he knows will only add yet another to the collection of chains that keep him tied to the older man. It’s easy enough for Shuu, being infamous as he is in the world of food, to give Ken the funds, support, and connections to revive the bakery.

 

Hinami jumps at the chance to help Ken do this and digs out an old directory in Yoshimura’s office. She points out three names—former employees that resigned for one reason or another—that she assures him will be more than enough. He wastes no time calling these three over and, upon hearing of Yoshimura’s condition, they waste no time getting there themselves.

 

Two weeks before Christmas Eve, Ken and his new crew sit around a table and, after some quick introductions, get to work immediately.

 

Koma is decidedly the most enthusiastic, although his creativity pales in comparison to Hinami’s and Irimi’s. Yomo is almost disturbingly quiet, but when he speaks up, it’s always a good idea, so Ken overlooks his silence.

 

They first decide on renovating the bakery, to give it a more cozy feeling. Hinami is put in charge. Irimi volunteers to help her buy everything she needs. Yomo and Koma agree to help with the manual labor, even though Ken says he can just ask to hire more people.

 

“It’ll feel better knowing that we did it ourselves,” Koma says lightly. “We’re just really glad you’re doing all this for the old man, Kaneki. You’re a good egg.”

 

Ken blinks. “Um. Thanks, I guess.”

 

With everyone doing what they had to do, Ken decides that it’s his turn to do his part. He sets off to make arrangements with all of the cafés and restaurants that Shuu advised him to ask. As he prepares to go, he feels a warmth wrap around him and at first he thinks he’s imagining it, but then he hears Hinami’s voice.

 

“Thank you, big brother Kaneki,” she murmurs into his back. “Thank you so much.”

 

For the first time in a long while, Ken smiles. He turns around and ruffles Hinami’s hair. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Tomorrow, let’s visit him at the hospital, okay?”

 

She nods, beaming, and the warmth from her hug keeps Ken from feeling the brunt of the wintry air outside.

 

* * *

 

After Anteiku makes a successful grand re-opening on Christmas Day, attracting a good number of families and couples, Ken starts to feel the warmth from Anteiku within him almost everywhere he goes. It makes him want to stay there for much longer. In fact, he _does_ have to stay longer. With Yoshimura in the hospital, he’s found himself playing the role of manager so much it makes him guilty sometimes.

 

Still, whenever he drops by Yoshimura’s room, the old man seems to love hearing about how Anteiku is doing. He smiles and nods as Ken tells him how well the bakery is doing and how the staff is doing. He seems thrilled that Yomo, Irimi, and Koma have returned to lend a helping hand, temporary as it is. The three have already paid their respective visits and Yoshimura has made no secret of how happy he is to see them again.

 

“I’m glad, Kaneki,” he says one January morning. “So very glad. I had already given up hope, but you kept that hope alive for me. Thank you.”

 

Ken doesn’t know what to say so he nods, embarrassed, and his eyes fall to his knees.

 

“I’m also glad to see how much you’ve changed since we first met.”

 

His gaze snaps up to meet Yoshimura’s. “Really?”

 

“Certainly,” the old man says. “You’ve become able to smile freely and trust others more. You’ve learned what it means to have a place and people important to you, to the point that you hate the idea of losing them.”

 

Ken looks back down at his lap again. He has always known the feeling of having people important to him. He also knows what it’s like to lose them. He knows, understands the powerlessness, the despair, and the absolute _fear_ of watching them leave his life without him being able to do a thing about it. He knows. He’s always known. Has he really changed at all, then?

 

“You have changed,” Yoshimura says. “Whether or not you choose to believe me, I will not change my opinion on the matter. You are not the same Ken Kaneki I brought in from the rain five months ago. Now, I don’t know if you think the person you are now is what you feel you want to be nor do I know if you’ll decide to stay this way or change back or change further. But whatever you do decide”—the old man smiles warmly—“we of Anteiku will never turn our backs to you.”

 

Something squeezes Ken’s heart like a vice and tears threaten to come bursting. These words are what he’s been waiting for all along, he knows. They fill him with a happiness he has known before, but tenfold. But at the same time they stir unwanted memories and emotions. He remembers he still doesn’t truly deserve them. Not while he still lives that other life.

 

Not while he remains tied to a promise that drains him of everything he’s worth whenever he thinks of it.

 

* * *

  

They have started to turn against him.

 

Well, he expected this to happen. He never did understand why people still accepted Shuu’s offers just to satiate his own needs. He just stood by and let it happen because as long as it did, he could keep calm when he was living that other life of his. Having an outlet would be helpful, experts had advised him. He’s kept it restrained for so long and recent events have only aggravated it. Medication won’t be enough, probably, they had said. Best to have an outlet. A calming activity.

 

Try counting, they said. One to ten. He had rolled his eyes. Backwards from a thousand in sevens is better, he had replied.

 

 _What have you done to curb it all this time?_ When one of them had asked him that, he had fixed them with a cold stare. _With knives_ , he said. _A friend taught me to._

In any case, the new clients were ones drawn to Shuu and Ken by rumors. When all is said and done, they complain that they never asked for this sort of thing. They threaten and they rage, but of course, that’s all they can do. They don’t have any real power over him. Shuu retaliates with theatrics. His best weapon. That way, he keeps them in line and he re-establishes his dominion over territory. That way, he protects Ken.

 

It’s okay, he thinks. He can do it. He’ll do it, if it means being able to keep that other, better life aboveground.

 

To protect Hinami, Yoshimura, and Anteiku. To keep his two halves separate.

 

He’ll do anything.

 

* * *

 

Yoshimura returns to Anteiku in the middle of February. A loud party is held and after several drinks, bad jokes (mostly by Koma), and loud laughter, Irimi and Koma announce that they will be permanently rejoining the Anteiku staff. Ken toasts to that and Hinami hugs the two of them so hard they look like they have trouble breathing.

 

Yomo, on the other hand, tells everyone he has to quit. He says he’s sorry he can’t stay, but he has other jobs he needs doing. Everyone assures him that they understand. It’s alright. Everyone will miss him lots, Hinami says.

 

Ken feels as though it’s his turn to make an announcement of his own, so he stands up and clears his throat. The staff quiets down and turns to him expectantly.

 

“First of all,” he says, “I’d like to thank Irimi, Koma, and Yomo for coming over last December on such short notice. You’ve all done so much. Thank you for all the work you’ve done.” He bows his head respectfully to each of them. “Thank you, too, Hinami, for spreading the word and for working so hard, sometimes I felt like you were a grown lady trapped in a little girl’s body. I’m really proud of you.” He smiles and Hinami returns his smile with red cheeks. Hinami’s mother holds her close, looking just as proud as Ken feels. “Thank you as well, Mrs Fueguchi for lending us your strength and your kind daughter.”

 

“And… Yoshimura,” he says, addressing the old man. “I can’t ever thank you enough for what you’ve done to help me. I’ve learned a lot of things I never would have if it weren’t for you. Thank you for everything. And with that, I’d like to turn over Anteiku’s management back to you.” He raises his glass to invite the others to another toast in Yoshimura’s name, but the old man shakes his head.

 

“No, no, Kaneki,” he says. “I’m afraid I’ll have to turn you down.”

 

Ken lowers his glass. “Why?”

 

“My dear boy,” the old man looks at him and it looks like those eyes are shimmering more than they ought. “You’ve done more for Anteiku than what I and my beloved Ukina and her family could have ever dreamed. I’m an old man, Kaneki. I’ve been unlucky enough to lose the only child I ever had. I’ve believed for a long time, deep down, that Anteiku was doomed. But you… You have made me see light again. Since you’re turning it over to me, in these brief moments that I have as manager of Anteiku, I name you my successor, Ken Kaneki, and advise you to take up the mantel as soon as possible. As one last favor to me.”

 

Ken is struck speechless. He opens and closes his mouth so many times that the rest of the staff laughs openly at him. He’s done it. He really has done it now. He’s taken a huge step further in this life.

 

“I hope I won’t disappoint you,” he says, bowing deeply in Yoshimura’s direction. The staff laughs louder at his traditional politeness.

 

He’s done it.

 

He’s taken a step. He’s stretched the leash a bit.

 

He wonders just how much more it can take. He wonders when he’ll reach the end of the line.

 

* * *

 

Waiting for Shuu and the client at Ghoul 20 is nothing so unusual, but tonight Ken feels a little off. Uta can sense it and tries unsuccessfully to rope him into fruitful conversation. Ken feels antsy, waiting like this, and he knows why.

 

Becoming the manager of Anteiku has made him so much more aware of the other half of his world. It makes him doubt, reaffirm, then contradict himself all over again. It irritates him how indecisive he feels despite being so determined to keep both sides of himself intact.

 

“Touka! I thought you’d be here by now.” Uta smiles widely at someone behind Ken. “You want the usual?”

 

“Yeah, in a bit.” The familiar voice replies. It’s Touka Kirishima. A regular at Ghoul 20 that Ken tends to see a lot. “This is my friend, Hide. He’s from Kamii and he’s new here. Thought I’d show him around a little.”

 

“Kind as always, aren’t you, Touka?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Hide.” Uta shakes hands with someone. Ken stares holes into his glass and hates how the vodka isn’t helping his thoughts clear up like it usually does. “I’m Uta. Bartender around here Monday to Friday nights from six to twelve. The gentleman over here on my left is Kaneki and he seems to be in a, hmm, _sour_ mood tonight.”

 

“ _Uta_ ,” Ken growls, irate. He doesn’t want to be implicated right now. He’s not in the mood to make any friends, but the way the bartender looks at him is forcing him to turn around and play nice.

 

What he sees is something he doesn’t typically see. Touka’s companion is a young man with hair bleached blond, its roots coming up brown near the top of his head. His eyes are a deep brown and shifting periodically from him to Touka. His clothes are, well, an interesting mix of yellow and green, but if there’s anything Ken is used to, it’s an unusual fashion sense. Then Ken’s gaze returns to the blond’s smile.

 

“My name is Ken,” he says, holding out a hand. “Ken Kaneki.”

 

“I’m Hide. Hideyoshi Nagachika. Pleasure to meetcha, Kaneki.” Hide grins at him as they shake hands but there’s a hardness in those eyes that makes Ken falter. When Hide and Touka leave the bar counter, Uta notices the way Ken’s eyes follow the blond.

 

“Like some sort of compulsive shopper, aren’t you, Kaneki?” Uta says lightly. Ken scowls.

 

“He’s not used to this kind of place, is he?”

 

“That’s what it seems like.” Uta pauses and smiles mischievously. “Aren’t we curious.”

 

Ken narrows his eyes at Hide’s back, remembering the blond’s smile. It’s not a smile he’s used to. It was flawlessly done, but his eyes betrayed the warning. Although, he might have meant to do that from the beginning. Regardless, it’s the kind of smile Ken doesn’t see in _this_ world too often. It’s a smile from _that_ world.

 

It doesn’t belong here.

 

* * *

 

 It has been five months since the beginning of the second semester but Ken can’t recall a single moment wherein he felt genuinely comfortable on campus. Students at the Arts building had apparently heard about him and are taking painstaking efforts to avoid him. So are most of the faculty. It reminds him that the only place he feels truly at ease in is Anteiku.

 

On his way down to his next class, he catches a glimpse of a yellow-headed blur out of the corner of his eye. He hurries down the stairs and pauses at the corner. He cranes his neck a little and peers down the hall.

 

It’s him. That blond from a few nights ago. What is his name again? Hidenori? Hideboshi?

 

“Hide, thanks a bunch, you’re a living, breathing lifesaver.” It’s the Arts student Ken recognized as the friend of the freshman he’d punched in the face thrice. He and a girl take three heavy-looking cardboard boxes and five long rolls of multicolored paper from the blond.

 

“Aw, shucks, don’t mention it,” Hide says cheerily. “Always glad to help!” His grin is so wide and blinding that Ken is two seconds away from shielding his eyes.

 

“We’ll pay you back for this, we promise,” the girl tells him.

 

Hide laughs. How can he _laugh_ like that? Ken, in all his life, has never encountered anyone who can laugh so sincerely over next to nothing. “Hey, no, you make it sound like I did this for money.”

 

The boy frowns. “Didn’t you?”

 

“Nah, man, I’m doing this to protect my rep as Kamii’s Number One Errand Boy.”

 

The girl seems to find this amusing and she smiles. “Okay, Number One Errand Boy, just think about what you want from us later,” she says.

 

“Sure will, m’lady.”

 

When Hide turns on his heel, Ken takes that as the cue to whirl around and dash up the stairs. He stays rooted in place on the second flight and when Hide doesn’t turn up, he sighs in relief.

 

He’d forgotten that Hide went to Kamii. Touka had said it, but he’d forgotten. He grimaces at how close a call that had been. The blond had unknowingly entered the part of Ken’s world that he’d been trying so desperately to keep separate from this one. Now, seeing him _here_ , he knows he can’t ever let that jeopardize the way he’d separated both halves of his world.

 

But something… Something nags at him. That smile. It was so bright, like the sun itself. Warmth seems to follow him everywhere he goes. Even when he’d been at Ghoul 20. Even now when he was handing those Arts students their belongings. They’d looked so tired and frantic, but the moment his face broke into a grin, they felt it too. What do you call it? A healing effect?

 

It’s so strange it draws him toward it. A pull he can’t explain. A fascination.

 

It gives Ken an idea.

 

* * *

 

 “Big brother,” Hinami says worriedly, frowning, “you’ve been working so hard on this for hours. Isn’t it time for a break?”

 

“I’ve almost got it, Hinami,” he mumbles, staring intently as he squeezes the last of the frosting out of the bag and onto the cupcake. When he finishes, he straightens, his back and neck groaning in protest. He wipes his forehead against his sleeve and looks at Hinami, smiling widely. “There we have it.”

 

Her eyes widen at the yellow cupcake with its blue-and-white frosting like clouds tucked into a mound of blue sky. “It’s so cute,” she says in a whisper. “What are you going to call it?”

 

Ken folds his arms across his chest and thinks of that smile again. “Well, I think it’s kind of obvious,” he says. “I’m calling it _Natsuzora_.”

 

“Summer sky.” Hinami looks at Ken. “What inspired you this time, big brother?”

 

He feels his eyebrows go up at the question and the innocent look in those eyes makes his face heat up a little. How can he say the truth like this?

 

“I guess,” he says slowly, “I’m just looking forward to summer break. Even if it _is_ just two weeks long.”

 

Hinami, sharp as she is, seems to sense that there’s more to it than that. Fortunately, she’s also tactful, and doesn’t pry. She just turns back to inspect _Natsuzora_ with a smile.

 

* * *

 

The next day brings a surprise unlike any other.

 

Hide stands in the middle of Anteiku and Ken feels his body freeze up.

 

Here it is at last. The intersection of both his two halves. Here it is. The end of the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of Kaneki’s backstory~ Next chappie, it’s back to Hide’s POV.


	12. Watching Everything Fall Apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hallo, friends, I hope you haven't tired of waiting for me hehe  
> I had a lot of shit on my plate (still do) but now I'm back and ready to take this on again! I'm deffo never leaving this fic baby, I promise, guys. So despite everything, please stay tuned for updates! I'll try to update every other week from now on! Wish me luck and I hope you enjoy this short chapter!

Koutarou Amon woke up with a premonition last night. It was clear to him as much as it was clear to all his colleagues at the Shinjuku police station. He didn’t normally wake up with premonitions, but when he did, they almost always came true in either the best way or the worst. He always hoped against the latter.

At around 10AM, he was still at a loss for what his premonition could be about this time. His telephone wasn’t ringing with any news whatsoever, and none of his co-workers seemed overly distraught about anything.

“ _Don’t think about it too much_ ,” Akira, his gorgeous lawyer of a fiancé, had once told him. “ _You’re something of a trouble magnet. Whatever it is, it’ll come around eventually._ ”

Which was true, essentially. But waiting for something to happen had never really suited Amon. It seemed almost second nature to him to seek out danger… Which was likely not something that anybody appreciated him doing, what with him being an officer of the law.

He sighed an ran a hand through his cropped hair. Sometimes, he got tired of the way his personality defied what was logically the best option. Though of course, he wasn’t as bad as junior officer Suzuya, who seemed to actively defy all logic and reason. Was that why Shinohara had taken a liking to the boy?

The telephone chose that very timely moment to ring. Amon almost jumped to snatch the receiver from its cradle, but he remembered to calm himself down and keep his expectations at a reasonable low. He let the phone ring thrice before picking it up and bringing it to his ear.

“This is Senior Police Officer Koutaro Amon speaking.”

“Amon, it’s Shinohara.”

Amon felt his heart pick up speed. Was this the beginning of his premonition playing itself out? “Do you have something to report?”

“More than a ‘little something,’ I’d say.” Suzuya’s voice echoed slightly from the other end. “Real neat stuff, Officer Amon,” the young man said jovially. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with so many broken bones before!”

“Anyway,” Shinohara cleared this throat, “there’s been a situation over here in Ikebukuro. I know it isn’t within your jurisdiction or anything, but I thought you might want to know about what’s going on.”

“Shinohara,” Amon said slowly, “what’s going on over there?”

There was a bit of a pause on the other end, as though Shinohara was reconsidering what he was about to say. Amon bit back the urge to tell him to hurry up and say whatever he needed to say.

“Remember that kid whose case was closed almost six years ago?”

Amon felt like a hole had opened up in each of his lungs and sucked them of air. Yes, he remembered that kid. How could he forget years of wondering what had ever happened to those grey eyes devoid of every emotion, every attachment, everything remotely human save for one thing: the faintest hint of loneliness.

“Amon?” Shinohara prompted. “You still there?”

He closed his eyes and rubbed them with the pad of his thumb and index finger. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah I’m still here.”

“Alright, I’ll just get to it. Last night at around 11PM, there was a scuffle in a back alley near one of the local bars. A group of four ganged up on one guy, around nineteen or twenty years of age. Average height. Nothing to note except a head of white hair. Sound familiar?”

Of course it sounded familiar. Amon was scrambling for a notepad and a pencil to scribble down every detail.

“Now according to eyewitnesses, the four suspects looked like they weren’t just trying to pick a fight. They were trying to _abduct_ the boy.”

“Why?”

“Not a soul we’ve interviewed knows. In any case, the boy got away, hopefully unscathed, but his assailants… well… They’ve definitely seen better days.”

“One cracked jaw, four dislocated shoulders,” Suzuya piped up. “Lots of broken ribs. Some legs. A bunch of fingers and toes…”

“I think you get the picture, Amon,” Shinohara spoke over his junior officer. Amon paused in his note-taking. He knew what Shinohara was going to say next. He knew it in his heart, too, but part of him refused to believe it was the same boy he saw all those years ago.

“I’m sorry, Amon,” Shinohara said. “But I think they’re right about this one. There are things better left unsaid and people best left unfound.”

* * *

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

If Hide closed his eyes long enough, it might have passed itself off as the sound of the kitchen tap whenever he didn’t close it all the way. It was so soft though. He could barely hear it. But in the same way, it was deafening. Like a thunderous roar, it demanded to be heard, to be felt. To be _remembered_.

Hide let his eyes open a fraction. A sliver of soft afternoon sunlight splashed pink and orange what little of reality he could make out through his eyelashes. One blurred lily in the vase by his mother’s head. Her steady breathing, the sheets shifting up and down rhythmically. Her short, mousy brown hair spread out on the pillow beneath her head.

He dared himself to open his eyes further, because reality was never just a _fraction_ of what he allowed himself to see. It was the tiny hospital room he and his mother were in. The seven drooping lilies in the vase. The dextrose solution drip-drip-dripping from the intravenous into his mother’s arm. Reality, like it always did, left him bruised and bloody and hurting but that was just it. That was reality. He couldn’t do anything to change that. That’s what he’d told Kaneki, at least.

“ _It’s not like you wanted what happened to you_ ,” he’d said. “ _I won’t deny the mistakes you made. I’m not in the position to forgive you for them either. Somebody is, but that’s not me. Reality bites, yeah, but reality isn’t your fault, Kaneki. Reality isn’t anyone’s fault but its own._ ”

Hide had meant every word. He could tell, after all, that Kaneki was just like him in the way that they both blamed themselves for most everything bad that happened. They both let those guilty thoughts trail after them like chains and tried with all of their might to pretend that they were okay, that everything was totally fine when nothing was.

He lifted his head a little and felt the nape of his neck ache. Reaching over to massage it with one hand, he rolled his head to try and get the stiffness out. The action afforded him full view of his sleeping mother. As it inevitably did, the sight reminded him of how harsh of a blow the family savings had taken. He’d even had to shell out his own share to cap off everything. Even then, he couldn’t let his mother stay another extra day like he wanted to, just… just in case. He let out a tiny half-sigh, half-groan.

Maybe he could take on more part-time jobs. Nothing to it. Not like he did much else between his studies, hanging out with Touka, and working his shifts at Anteiku. He’d considered this idea more than a few times before. It was old news to him. Old, optimistic news.

He’d talked to Touka about it, of course. She’d told him his scholarship was going to suffer. He knew that too. Without a doubt. If worse came to worst…

He grunted and with a shake of his head, he willed the pessimism away. No. He couldn’t quit Kamii. He’d put so much into that. Finishing college and finding a good job, a _real_ job, and buying himself and his mother a new home, away from his father, was everything he’d ever hoped for.

And what about Kaneki? Knowing everything (or almost everything) there was to know about Kaneki had left Hide with a bittersweet taste in his mouth. It was difficult to digest, let alone swallow. But at the end of the day, at the end of any story, Kaneki was still, well, Kaneki. He was the same guy who loved books as much as he loved baking. He was the same Anteiku manager who lived (or tried to) one floor above his bakery. He was still the same Kaneki who put up a convincing bad-guy front that crumbled as soon as he touched a rolling pin or saw Hinami’s smile or—dare Hide even think it—whenever he talked to Hide about nearly anything and everything.

He was still the Kaneki Hide had fallen for, with the same kind of twist you’d expect from any Byronic hero.

 _Kaneki, a hero?_ Thinking it made Hide smile. If there was anything Ken Kaneki could be, it was definitely a hero.

* * *

One week passed—two since he’d last seen Kaneki—and it was time for him and his mother to go on home. She was still dazed and groggy when they helped her into the passenger seat of her car. Hide strapped her in before getting back into the car. Driving away from the hospital for what was hopefully the last time, Hide kept glancing over at his mother. She kept her eyes trained on some unknown point beyond the car window. It was good, at least, that she was conscious now.

“How’re you doing, Mom?” Hide asked probingly. “Everything okay?”

There was the slightest of nods and silence persisted between them. Hide started to panic inwardly. She was building the beginnings of a wall that would be impossible to break through if he just sat there and let it happen.

So he talked.

He didn’t know what he was talking about; he was just snatching random conversation topics off the top of his head. As long as he kept talking and laughing, trying to lure her into casual conversation, he thought he was doing a good job of things. It took nearly the whole way home, but she was smiling at his worst jokes and she didn’t pull her hand away when Hide let his hand rest on it.

Once they were home, he helped her up to her room. She sat on the edge of her bed as Hide scrambled to push the curtains aside and let the morning sunshine in. He looked back at her and felt relief clog his throat when he saw the wide smile gracing her features, glowing in the morning light. He walked over to sit next to her and when she put her arms around him, he felt tears sting his eyes.

Pressing her face against his shoulder, she murmured, “I’m so sorry, Hide… You’ve got a terrible mother, haven’t you?”

He wrapped his arms around her and let his forehead rest on her hair. “No,” he said reassuringly. “I’ve got the best mom in the world.”

She pulled away from him, her eyes glistening. “I’ll do better,” she promised. “I’ll make your breakfast and dinner. I’ll do the laundry. Clean up around the house. Tuck you in at night…”

Hide laughed and took her hands in his. They were so small. When had they gotten so small? “It’s okay Mom. I’ve got everything under control. You just rest, alright?”

“How can I rest knowing my own son is doing my job for me?” she said, pursing her lips. “Let me try, Hide. Let me try being your mother.”

He looked into her eyes and saw the same resolution that he felt in his heart. There wasn’t any dissuading her. He chuckled. “You don’t have to try, Mom,” he said, placing a kiss on her forehead. “You already are my mother. No matter what happens.”

* * *

Kaneki couldn’t go back.

 _But it hurt. It_ hurt. _Goddammit,_ everything _hurt!_

He cradled his left wrist and tried not to wince at every movement he made. Dim, flickering yellow incandescent lamplight illuminated the path before him. The twisting alleys of Ikebukuro. Bruises probably covered every inch of his body. His right eye was swelling fast. He had gotten away back there, just barely. Barely enough to save those people from himself.

He’d done it again. He’d snapped. He’d gone off, like a bomb unchecked.

It’s not like it was anything new, but to think that he’d thought everything was alright up until that point? He’d let his guard down. Calling himself an idiot or a fucking _moron_ at this point wasn’t going to do him justice. He’d thought maybe, just, maybe, that Hide had cured him somehow. That the warm feeling he had every time he thought of the blond was like a healing balm on the wounds and scars of his mind, soul, and heart.

He’d gone off. It was unforgivable. He’d hurt people. Again.

Fuck. Fuck it all. Why was he like this? Why was he such a… such a _freak?_ Was it too much to ask for a normal life, normal friends, and a normal family? Maybe it was.

He felt his left foot fail him and his legs fall out from beneath him. He fell to the ground with a curse, only to pick himself back up.

He’d gone off, and it was unforgivable. But he’d gotten back up and maybe it was terrifically clichéd of a reason, but he hadn’t let himself fall apart because of something someone had told him.

“ _Reality isn’t your fault, Kaneki_.”

Thinking back to Hide’s smile, indiscriminately warm and kind, Kaneki felt his heart skip a beat. Hide might not know it now, but Kaneki wanted him to know that his words meant something. He’d said a mere “thank you” to Hide, but those two words alone had carried behind them at least eight years of pain and self-disgust.

Hide’s words had meant something. They’d meant for Kaneki to forgive himself. To get back up again.

And after that, he’d sworn that he would. Giving up here, in the middle of this dank alleyway, was like spitting at what Hide had told him two, three weeks ago.

Kaneki wouldn’t give up here. He wouldn’t give up anywhere.

If only to hold true to his “thank you.”

* * *

Amon didn’t particularly relish the idea of talking to his future father-in-law under these kinds of circumstances, but he couldn’t help it. What could he do? His sources had led him here, and they’d been hard enough to find on their own, bribed heavily to silence as they were.

The door swung open for him at last.

“It’s certainly been a while, hasn’t it, Amon m’boy?” Professor Mado and his trademark smirk greeted Amon along with the toasty warmth of the Kamii Arts faculty. “When was it I saw you last? Three days ago? Two?”

“Yesterday, sir,” Amon said politely. “To discuss, erm, the wedding.”

“Ahh yes, the wedding of my beloved Akira.” The professor looked thoughtful as he regarded Amon from head to toe. It made him feel like standing up straighter, even though there was a mischievous glint in the professor’s eyes. “But that’s not what you’re here for today, is it?”

“Not at all.”

Professor Mado’s smirk widened and he stepped aside. “Come in, my boy. I can see that we have something of grave import to discuss.”

* * *

He couldn’t go back, but what was he doing here?

Kaneki was walking in a daze, moving purely on instinct and memory instead of will and conscious thought. He hadn’t moved at all in daylight, keeping to the shadows and doing his best to remain unseen. His mind had settled into a sort of autopilot mode and by the time he realized it, he was standing at the gate of Hide’s house.

“What am I doing here?” he asked himself aloud, just to hear his own voice. It sounded strange. Oddly strangled. How did he even remember to get here? He’d only been here once, to see Hide home that one night they’d met in the park.

He had no idea why his mind thought it might be a good idea to steer him in this direction. He had no idea how long he’d even been standing out there, staring up at the building like an aspiring robber or just some textbook maniac.

He had no idea of anything until the moment the door opened and Hide— _Hide_ —emerged from the house.

Then everything went black and Kaneki didn’t know anything but warm relief.


	13. Getting Into the Thick of Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey, guys, I'm back with an update! Sorry it took so long. I swear, between college and psychotherapy, I've barely had time to write and I know it's really horrible of me. (-_-);;;  
> Anyway, this is a really short chapter, maybe even the shortest I've written for this fic. It's only about half the size of the average chappie, and I wonder about the quality too, but I promise things are moving along quickly. Again, sorry for the erratic updates and thank you to everyone who's read and is still reading this!

Touka pushed her arm through the sleeve of the heavy old coat she’d picked up at a garage sale Officer Amon had downstairs around half a year ago.

She was pulling on her leather winter boots (also a score from the garage sale—probably something he’d bought for his blonde girlfriend that was the wrong size) by the doorway when Ayato emerged from the bedroom he shared with Dad maybe four, five times a year. He was scratching his stomach, yawning sleepily. He glanced at her and his eyebrows knit into a frown.

“This early?”

She pursed her lips as she tied the laces of her right boot. “Not my fault Hide phoned in at two in the morning,” she said. “And honestly, I don’t trust the two of them alone together.”

Ayato’s lips twitched into a grimace. “Hide’s _mom_ is there, isn’t she? What the fuck would they even do?”

Touka tossed a slipper at her brother’s head. He was sleepy, but not too sleepy to dodge. “That’s not what I meant, you perverted brat.”

“Then what _do_ you mean?” he said irritably, picking up the slipper. 

“I _mean_ ”—she punctuated the word with a tug of her bootlaces—“that the two of them alone together is like dangling meat in front of a lion.”  
“What the hell does that even mean?”

 _It means Tsukiyama won’t be happy when he finds out_ , Touka thought, her jaw clenched. _If he hasn’t already._

“Oi, are you even listening to me? _Oi_.”

The slipper hit Touka square in the back of the head and though she bristled with agitation, she didn’t rise to take the bait. She simply tied the last of her laces and stood up. “I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

“Well, I won’t,” retorted Ayato. “I’ve got work.”

She shrugged. “Fine, I’ll start without you.” As she started toward the door, she heard him shuffle back into his bedroom, but not before muttering, “Don’t.”

Touka smiled to herself before shutting the apartment door behind her. She knew her brother’s version of “please” whenever she heard it.

* * *

“Here ya go, fresh from Hide’s kitchen,” the bleached blond chirped as he set up the steaming curry and rice on the little table set over Kaneki’s lap. “Currée ala Hideyoshi.”

One end of the white-haired manager’s mouth twitched upward into a half-smile. “I’m not sure that’s a thing.”

“Oh, but it is! I promise you, this is the kind of recipe any gourmet chef would trip over himself to find out.” Hide grinned, hands on his hips, looking impressive in his black apron. Or at least, he _hoped_ he looked impressive.

Kaneki hummed, picking up the spoon and fork next to the plate. “I’ll be the judge of that.” Just as he dug in and Hide felt himself fidgeting nervously, awaiting the expert baker’s judgment, the doorbell rang. Kaneki quirked an eyebrow questioningly, one cheek bulging slightly with a spoonful of curry and rice.

“Must be Touka,” Hide said quickly as he started for the door.

It took Kaneki a second to swallow and sputter, “ _Touka?_ ” but Hide was already pulling the door open for her to come in from the cold. 

“Thanks,” she told Hide. “It’s freezing out, can you believe it? Nowhere near first snow and my fingers _already_ feel like they’re gonna fall off.” She entered, cheeks and nose flushed, and bent down to untie her bootlaces.

“Guess you aren’t hot enough to beat the cold,” Hide said smilingly.

“Ha ha,” Touka said drily. “I did miss your god-awful humor.” She slid her feet into indoor slippers and entered the living room, meeting Kaneki’s incredulous gaze at last. Her nose wrinkled as her eyes raked his bandaged and splinted wrist down to his raised, also bandaged, ankle. “You look… good.”

A shadow crossed Kaneki’s features but Hide shot him a meaningful glance from over Touka’s shoulder. They were in _his_ house right now and though his mother was out buying groceries, Hide didn’t exactly want a battle royale in here. Kaneki seemed to read the thought in his gaze and swallow whatever hostility he felt toward Touka.

“I’ve had better mornings,” he said simply before turning back to his food. 

Touka said nothing and moved to sit in the sofa chair adjacent to Kaneki’s feet. Hide offered her some coffee. She nodded. While the bleached blond busied himself in the kitchen, he snuck not-so secretive glances at the two in the living room. He couldn’t hear any conversation and tried not to feel jumpy about that. 

When he returned with some coffee for himself and Touka, he took the chair opposite her and for a while the three of them remained in silence. When Hide looked from Kaneki to Touka, he knew instantly that both them had things they wanted to say, whether to him or to each other, he had no idea. But they both had something to say. They just didn’t want to say it. Or didn’t know how. Just when Hide opened his mouth to break the silence, however, Touka beat him to the punch.

“I’m not one to mince words, Kaneki,” she said, taking her mug of coffee off the table and cupping her hands around it. “You’re really pushing it here.”

The white-haired manager pressed his lips together into a thin line but didn’t reply. Hide thought about intervening, but he had a gut feeling that he couldn’t. Not just yet.

“While I’m over the moon that Hide’s mother is finally getting better and that his bastard of a father is being sensitive enough _not_ to show his shitfaced ass anywhere near here, I can’t say the same about the kind of threat you’re posing on my idiot of a best friend here.” Touka ended with a nod in Hide’s direction. He barely had the time to feel flattered that she was calling him her “best friend” for the first time in a _long_ while. He was busy looking at Kaneki and nervously clenching his jaw. 

Kaneki, though, remained quiet. He’d put his spoon and fork down long ago, but his grey eyes never left his breakfast.

“I honestly never thought things would get to this point,” she went on. “It was pretty stupid of me to think that the two of you would be able to stay on either side of the line like this. Look, I was never against the two of you hooking up. I was never against, you know, _experimenting._ Sometimes you can’t grow as a person without seeing the other side for yourself. But there are places where I draw the line and this is it. You can’t drag Hide any farther into your—our—side of the line, Kaneki. This is serious.”

“I _know_ it’s serious,” Kaneki snapped, making Hide jump. “Do you think I _want_ Hide getting in over his head because of me? Do you think I _want_ someone getting hurt because of me?”

“ _You_ came here,” Touka fired back. “ _You_ ’re the one bringing trouble to his doorstep. You honestly don’t think about other people, huh? You only think about what _you_ want. You—”

“Touka,” Hide interrupted. “I think that’s enough.”

“No, she’s right,” Kaneki said quietly. He rubbed his eyes and the sides of his face, shoulders slumped. “I could’ve gone anywhere but here. I’m a trouble magnet, I know that. It’s like tragedy can sniff me out without even trying. But somehow… Somehow I knew, I felt… _Here_ was safe.”

Hide felt his pulse speed up a little. Or maybe it was just his imagination. Last night, when he and his mom had helped Kaneki stagger into their home and bandaged him up, the white-haired manager hadn’t said much other than “thank you.” What part of him had felt this house was “safe”? What had pushed him forward, step by step, inch by excruciating inch, to Hide’s home? 

“Well, it isn’t safe anymore,” Touka said flatly. “Thanks to you.”

“Touka,” Hide said again, sharper this time. She fell into sullen silence, but didn’t bother to mask the belligerence in her eyes. “Look,” he said, “I appreciate that you guys think about my safety more than I do, but I think I’m totally capable of looking after myself, thank you very much.”

Both Touka and Kaneki looked at him incredulously and he balked. “What? I’m serious! I can be cautious when I try. _Anyway_ , my safety aside, I think it’d be better if we discussed where to go from here? We’re not even sure Tsukiyama knows Kaneki’s here.”

“You don’t have a tracking chip somewhere on that body of yours?” Touka asked, her question directed at Kaneki though she wasn’t looking at him but at her coffee.

“No. Just in my phone. Which I lost on the way here.”

“Convenient,” she commented.

“She means ‘smart,’” Hide said, grinning. “It’ll throw him off a little, at least.”

“Not by much,” Touka said, taking a sip of coffee. “But, yeah, it’ll help us.”

“‘Us’?” Kaneki echoed. “You’re getting involved?”

Touka snorted. “There’s no way I wouldn’t.” She leaned forward. “Now, about the plan.”

* * *

“Welcome!” Hinami said cheerily as the customer entered, the bells at the entrance tinkling pleasantly. She beamed at the tall man as he approached the counter. His cropped dark hair was peppered with powdery snow and he looked around at the bakery with the sort of wide-eyed look that reminded her of when Hide first came into Anteiku. He wasn’t exactly slack-jawed with awe, but he looked a little taken aback by everything. Mostly, though, he seemed surprised by Hinami herself. She knew she was obviously younger than most cashiers but she was used to the reactions by now.

“Good morning,” he said politely as he neared. 

“Good morning,” she replied happily. “What would you like, sir?”

“My name is Amon Koutarou,” he said, pulling out an police investigator’s badge and briefly showing it to her. “I’d like to ask a few questions… er…”

“Oh, it’s Hinami. Hinami Fueguchi.”

“Miss Fueguchi, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” Mister Koutarou’s eyes strayed over the menu on the counter next to the cash register. Hinami felt her insides coil with nerves. She’d only recently redesigned the countertop menu and had it printed and laminated yesterday afternoon. Mister Koutarou was the very first customer to see it, and she hoped he wouldn’t find it over-the-top. Then she snapped back to his words. A few questions…?

Mister Koutarou pushed forward some coins. “Over some coffee, is that alright?”

Hinami cocked her head a little. Kaya was running late and Koma was out doing deliveries, but Yoshimura was still upstairs in the office…

“I think you should talk to the assistant manager,” she said with a smile. She felt a little uneasy about what these questions might be. And a police investigator wasn’t exactly a regular customer type at Anteiku. Hopefully, Yoshimura would know what to do.

Mister Koutarou smiled. “Yes. I think that would be great.”

* * *

Tsukiyama could feel his blood. He really could. Every cell, every drop, vein, and artery, all, all, _all_ of it, was throbbing with rage and grief. He felt like he’d been cut open, like all his insides had been dragged out of his limp body and displayed for all the world to see. He could feel his brain screaming anguish and his heart drowning in its own red tears. He felt furious. He felt enraged. He felt betrayed. He felt a rising crescendo of emotions like he had never had before.

“Mister Tsukiyama, I beg you—”

He was going mad. He _was_ mad. He was an art form. He was a masterpiece.

“Please, please… Give me more time. I’ll pay it all back. I swear it.”

Beautiful, it was beautiful, this torrent of emotion. Simply _feeling_. He could laugh. He did. It felt magnificent as it sounded.

“D-don’t kill me! Please… I… I have a wife! A son!”

Because it was something. It filled crevices that had been left in his heart ever since Mother and Father and Kanae and now, _Ken_ , had left behind. 

“F…F…uck… You’re a… monster…”

Something was better than nothing. _Anything_ was better than nothing. Love, hate, agony, wrath, desire… He was a vessel for all of these. A cup overflowing.

“Sir, the man is dead.”

He craved it, this notion of feeling something so overpowering, like a tsunami of insanity assaulting him. It made him feel absolutely—

“Glorious,” he whispered, driving another, though unnecessary, knife into the Nagachika fool’s throat.

* * *

“Are you absolutely, 100 per cent _sure_ you’ll be okay?” Hide asked for the seventh time, making Touka and Kaneki sigh.

“I’ll be _fine_ ,” the white-haired manager said. “Your mother is here and, like what Touka said: Shuu won’t make any brazen moves so soon.”

“I’m really fine walking on my own, you know,” Touka said aloud.

“No you’re not,” both Hide and Kaneki said at the same time.

“We’ve talked about this,” Hide continued. “It’s not safe for any of us right now, but Kaneki and my mom can hide in the basement if things get hairy. You, on the other hand, are walking home by yourself, plus you’re a girl so—”

“Just because I’m a _girl_ doesn’t automatically make me fragile,” Touka snapped. “Sometimes, I wonder if you ever even remember the five years I spent doing karate.”

“Five painful years,” Hide muttered. “Okay, fine, so I know you can hold your own in a fight, but it’s just not right to let you go home by yourself.”

“You and your sense of justice. Honestly.” She shook her head. 

“ _Touka_ ,” he said pleadingly. “We’re just worried about you.”

She glanced dubiously at Kaneki, who looked the other way. Then, finally, she sighed. “Alright, alright. Let’s just go.”

“Thank god,” Hide said, relieved. He looked at Kaneki. “I’ll be back home before dark, I promise.”

Kaneki nodded. “Be careful,” he said.

“I will.”

Touka rolled her eyes and Hide thought his eyes were playing tricks on him when it looked like she was fighting a smile. He clapped her on the back. “Let’s get a move on.”


	14. Leaving You Behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the irregularity of updates... Next update will be August 13 at the very latest!  
> Thanks so much for always being patient with me!

It’s only when they’ve been walking for about five minutes or so that Hide realises he hasn’t done this in a long time. Walking Touka home, that is. Weeks or even months, maybe. He wasn’t all too sure. Although he would have normally made some clever and perfectly witty comment about that, now wasn’t the time. In fact, now wasn’t the time for much anything except keeping up with Touka’s brisk pace and furtively shooting glances over his shoulder once in a while, expecting some shadowy figure to materialise behind every pot, every post, every corner. According to Kaneki, Tsukiyama was probably sending bodyguards and henchmen in droves, sweeping every nook and cranny of Tokyo and beyond for him. Hide bit his thumb, anxious. _But Kaneki’s been gone way too long_ , he thought. _Tsukiyama must’ve connected the dots by now. He should already know by now._

This was exactly why he and Touka were hurrying to her apartment. Hide, Touka, and Kaneki were probably three of the most paranoid people on earth, in varying ways. It took less than a second for them to agree on the worst case scenario. Hide could still remember the dark look flashing across Touka's face when they were talking about this. He knew, without asking, just instinctively, that she was thinking of Ayato and her father. How Tsukiyama knew her. How he might use them against her, against Hide, against Kaneki, the same way he might use Hide’s mother against them. The same way he might use Anteiku against them. Everyone they loved was turning into a liability. Everyone was suddenly an opening for the rest to get stabbed in the gut.

Especially the three of them.

Hide felt his stomach lurch when he thought of Kaneki, alone and injured in his home. His mother, still weak from her hospitalisation, there watching over the white-haired youth. Fleeting images of Tsukiyama and his unnerving smile made Hide shudder.

But they’d put together a plan. Sort of. Things would be okay. If they were careful. As long as Tsukiyama didn’t do anything like bribe the entirety of the Japanese government…

“You’re overthinking again, aren’t you?” Touka’s voice burst into his thoughts like ice cold water spray. He jolted to attention.

“Huh? What? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Overthinking? Me? Nah. I’m just nervous. A little. A bit.” He bit his lip. She looked at him with raised eyebrows and a half-smirk. He sighed. “Okay, I’m _kinda_ nervous,” he admitted. “I mean, we’re not a hundred percent sure about this plan. We don’t even have a solid contingency yet. What if Kaneki can’t get his contact to agree to the job? What if Tsukiyama put a chip in him that he doesn’t know about? Even then, I’m already pretty damn confident that the guy knows Kaneki's at my place. That’s what I can’t figure out.” He ran his gloved hands through his hair, frustrated. “Why isn’t he making a move? Why hasn’t he done anything?” Kaneki had said the attack on him in Shinjuku some time back wasn’t Tsukiyama. It was just a bunch of thugs he’d gotten on the wrong side of bed with… literally…

“Hideyoshi Nagachika,” Touka said sharply. “Isn’t it about time you dropped the worrywart act?” When he opened his mouth to refute her, she shushed him and raised a finger. “Fine, so it’s not an act. Yeah, you worry a lot. Kaneki obviously worries a lot. I worry a lot. We’re all fucking worried. But we’re going to try not to be worried, okay? Everything might go to shit at any given moment. But we’re going to try. We’re going to try to get out of this alive. All of us. Understand?”

Hide didn’t feel any less worried, but he wasn’t about to argue. She had a point. A really good point. He let out another sigh. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Good for you.” She paused, then elbowed him in the gut.

“OW, what—?”

“Where’s all that macho Hide I saw back at your place, eh?” Grinning evilly, Touka continued to prod him with her elbow. “Acting tough in front of your boyfriend, then breaking down in front of me? You’ve got it so bad.”

“Shut up,” Hide muttered, feeling his ears warm. He pursed his lips and shifted his gaze to his feet, sticking his hands into his pockets. “You… don’t think he noticed I was putting up an act, right? Was I too obvious?”

Touka smiled, humming to herself. “You weren’t pathetic, at least.”

He let his head fall dejectedly. “Great.”

She kicked him lightly in the shin. “Hey, it’s a compliment,” she said. “If I hadn’t known you since you were a snot-nosed kid scaring off the bullies with your mind games, I’d say you were kind of cool back there.”

Hide’s head snapped up and he blurted a disbelieving, “What did you just—”

“Make me say it again and I’ll break your leg.”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am. I mean—”

Touka laughed. It was nice to hear, after all this time. More so now, when laughing felt like lying. Hide felt himself smile, and that smile stayed until they got to Touka’s door.

 

* * *

 

“I’m back,” Hide announced, pulling off his gloves and pocketing them. He was extricating himself out of his coat when Kaneki appeared by the living room entryway.

“You’re in one piece,” the white-haired manager commented quietly. He probably meant it jokingly or offhandedly, but Hide knew relief when he saw it. He resisted the urge to scoop Kaneki up in his arms and just hold him forever. He kept up his mental resistance by clearing his throat.

“Wait a sec—you’re walking!” He gawked at Kanji’s bandaged ankle for a second before rushing over. “You’re not supposed to get up yet, Kaneki, what are you going to do if you tear something or break something?” 

Kaneki made a face. “I’m not a china doll, Hide,” he said pointedly. “I’ve had worse than a sprained ankle.”

Even though Kaneki likely made the comment to give Hide some peace of mind but it did more of the opposite. In his mind, Hide could see the horrific approximations his imagination made of Kaneki’s dark past. The images made him sick to the stomach, made his head ache, made his heart burn, his soul tremble. He didn’t even know he was holding Kaneki in his arms until he felt him squirm ever so slightly in his grip.

“Hide,” Kaneki murmured. “Hide, I—you’re shaking. Hide—”

“I won’t,” Hide said, burying his face in Kaneki’s shoulder, “I won’t let anyone touch you. I’ll protect you.” He felt his throat closing up, a lump of tears forming within. He didn’t understand why he felt this deeply. He didn’t know why he so fiercely wanted to whisk Kaneki away from anything and everything that ever had and ever would hurt him. It was like animal instinct. Except it wasn’t. 

“Hey, shh, shh. It’ll be okay.” Kaneki brushed knuckles against Hide’s cheek. “I’ll be okay. We’ll get through this. Don’t be scared. I’m right here.”

There was a ball of lead inside him. It was hot like indignation and fury but heavy like despair. “You’re not the one who’s supposed to say that, ‘Neki,” he said with a wan smile. “Let somebody protect you once in a while.” _Let it be me_.

“If I want to say something, I’ll say it,” Kaneki said, tugging lightly on the front of Hide’s sweater and suddenly it was much too hot for the sensation to be normal. Hide’s eyes were on Kaneki’s—those swirling grey mists—then down, down to his lips forming words, maybe even a sentence, who knows? Hide didn’t.

Then they were kissing, for the second time in history. They were _kissing_. Lips intertwined, fingers creeping around waists and running through hair. Kaneki’s breath warmed Hide’s cold cheeks and he pulled Kaneki closer. He felt like melting down to the soles of his shoes. He felt like throwing the anchor of his ship and staying right where he was. Right there, in the middle of all the turmoil, all the chaos. Right there, where they stood by the doorway of his house, kissing and kissing and kissing. Hide never wanted it to stop. He wanted it to go on forever, but he knew even that was too much to ask for.

“Boys?”

They jumped apart like live wires had gone through them as Hide’s mother appeared at the top of the stairs. They held their breaths.

“What would you two like for lunch?” she asked, smiling warmly. 

There was a brief pause before Hide grinned. “There’s mackerel in the fridge, Mom,” he said cheerily. “I can help out—”

“No, I will,” Kaneki cut in.

Hide’s mother finally seemed to notice that Kaneki wasn’t where he was supposed to be. She pursed her lips as she came down the stairs. “No, no, Ken, dear, you shouldn’t even be walking with that ankle.” She shushed his further protests and led him back to the sofa. He sat down looking miffed and Hide had to stifle his laughter as he followed his mother to the kitchen. Kaneki sent him a glare or two, but the giddiness Hide felt wasn’t about to be put down. His mouth was still tingling and Kaneki’s pale cheeks were still tinged red.

It was all he could do not to dance a victory lap around the house. Not even the notion of impending doom could dispel the smile on his face. 

Or so he thought.

 

* * *

 

That night, Hide was sitting next to Kaneki, having midnight tea while his mother slept upstairs. The air between them was solemn and thoughtful. A far cry from earlier that day.

As per the usual, Hide was the first to break the ice. “Does he usually take this long to… you know…”

Kaneki gripped his cup, knuckles whitening. “Not… all the time,” he said slowly. “To be honest, I don’t know exactly what he’s thinking half the time these days. I really don’t. Ever since o—his parents died, I haven’t been able to figure him out. Or maybe I already have but I don’t really want to admit it to myself.”

Hide nodded. Somehow, he understood what Kaneki was trying to say. When you watch someone you love change so utterly because of something completely out of your control, you never lose that connection you have with them. Even if they go mad, even if they start razing the earth and cutting people down at the roots, you just _know_. You know them so, so well.

That was how Hide felt about his father.

“How long do you think we have?”

Kaneki eyed his tea. “A week. At most. He”—Kaneki paused—“he probably still thinks I’m coming home.” He said the word “home” forlornly, like he so dearly wanted to mean it, but couldn’t. Even with all of his heart, he couldn’t. And despite it all, Hide wanted to tell him, _Can’t some other place be home to you? Can… Can I be…?_

“Hide. About today.”

The blond jumped in his seat, spilling some tea on his shirt. Kaneki rolled his eyes and reached for the box of tissues on the table as Hide muttered an apology.

“About today,” Kaneki repeated as he handed the tissue to Hide. “The, um, thing we did.”

“Uh-huh, yeah, w-what about that thing?” Hide wanted to slap himself but the damage was already done. It was done the moment he had leaned forward for that kiss.

Kaneki looked like he wanted to shrink into himself—a feeling Hide reciprocated. “I—I’m sorry,” he blurted, catching Hide off-guard. “It was—I was—I wanted—argh!” Kaneki threw up his free hand in exasperation. “Oh my god, I’m shit at explaining these things. I’m so sorry, Hide.”

“Hey. Hey, what are you apologising for?” Hide was starting to think the worst. “I mean, I was the one who initiated. You don’t have to feel like that.”

“No,” Kaneki said, shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. I didn’t… not… want to. I did! I did, but…”

“But?”

He flushed a little. “I haven’t totally figured everything out… yet,” he said. “I’m still thinking about, you know, this whole mess. I’m thinking about Shuu and Anteiku and you and…” He trailed off. He was looking up now. Their eyes had met again and like before, the connection drew out a silence like a blade from its scabbard.

“You’re thinking about what?”

Hide wasn’t sure when they’d gotten so close again. He wasn’t sure when they’d put their cups of tea on the table, either. But here they were, so close it _had_ to be on purpose… right?

“I’m thinking about you,” Kaneki murmured.

“And?”

“Just you.”

Hide laughed softly. “Really? I thought for sure you said a whole bunch of other stuff you’re thinking about.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Kaneki growled.  
“Yes, sir,” Hide breathed as their mouths melded into one.

It was like a frenzy of motion, like they wanted to do everything all at once but didn’t know how. All Hide knew was that he wanted to never let Kaneki go. They clung to each other. Hide put his hands on Kaneki’s warm, warm cheeks. Kaneki’s arms were around his neck. Hide was falling, falling, falling.

“Hide,” Kaneki gasped. He hovered over the blond warily, red to the ears. “I—we shouldn’t—”

“I—If you don’t want to,” Hide managed to say. It was difficult to make himself do it, but he began to get up and away from Kaneki. What was he thinking, getting carried away like that? Kaneki wasn’t sure yet. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be anything but wrong. Hide wanted to jump out a window and bury himself. He was being a total idiot. He had to apologise. He had to say—

“I’m sorry,” he blurted just as Kaneki said the same.

They paused. One corner of Kaneki’s mouth twitched upwards and that was all it took for Hide to burst out laughing. Then they were both laughing. They laughed until they couldn’t even remember why they’d started laughing in the first place.

“You…” Hide said as he caught his breath. “You’re amazing.”

“How?” Kaneki wheezed.

“Dunno. You just are.”

Kaneki elbowed him lightly. “You sound stupid.”

“I know.”

“I like that about you, though.”

Hide looked up at him. “You do?”

Kaneki smiled. “Yeah. I do. I really, really do.”

“That makes one of us, at least.” It was impossible to ignore the way his stomach was doing somersaults inside him. He couldn’t stop the grin spreading on his face and the blush that had reached his ears. There were a lot of impossible things in the world, he guessed. Maybe getting Kaneki to like him—to really like him—wasn’t one of those things.

 

* * *

 

Hide got a text from Touka late next morning.

 

_R u going to class?_

 

He yawned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He glanced over at Kaneki’s sleeping figure on the sofa and felt his insides melt a little. It took him a minute to reply to Touka that yes, he was going to class but only about half of them so that he could get home early. He wasn’t too worried about his attendance—he had never been absent until only recently—and he had friends in every class. It would be a bit hard to catch up, but he could do it with enough patience.

Touka texted back just as he was making himself a mug of hot chocolate.

 

_Be careful._

 

Hide warmed his hands with the steaming mug and smiled at her two-word-long message. She wasn’t usually so overt with her concern. But then again, all things considered, she did have the right to be worried. They’d never been caught up in something like this. She might have been close a few times, what with the time she spent rubbing shoulders with Nishiki and Kimi, but never like this. Everything about this situation was threatening to tear them apart.

Every instinct inside Hide was telling him to bolt, to leave everything behind. To save himself and his mother and Touka and her family. He was scared. He really was. But to run away was to abandon Kaneki.

That was one thing he could never do.

Leaving the house was to leave Kaneki vulnerable, but it was also the only way to a solution. Today, he would meet with Kaneki’s contact, Renji Yomo, and discuss the details of their plan. 

Kaneki stirred in his sleep, mumbling something unintelligible. He was going to wake up soon.

Hide stood up to make another mug of hot chocolate.


	15. Seeing Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG 2 months late -_-""  
> it took a while but HERE IT IS  
> goddammit i swear there will be real action next chapter
> 
> On another note: THANK YOU GUYS FOR 600+ KUDOS AND 10K HITS!! This is monumental. Thank you so so much for all the support!

Renji Yomo was a tall guy with a muscular build you could tell even with his coat on. Stern, quiet, and generally just really intimidating, he looked and played the part of a former yakuza agent pretty well. All throughout the car ride, it had been difficult enough trying to make small talk, much less actually bring up the whole Tsukiyama-trying-to-kill-everybody-except-maybe-Kaneki issue. Hide had then concluded that Yomo was a man of few words and a lot more action. As much as he wanted to respect that, the quiet wasn't easy on his nerves.

They got to their destination without any problems, but Yomo warned him to keep his head on. “Things’ve been off lately,” he said, leading the way down a narrow street crammed with tiny bars, hotels, ramen shops, basement clubs, bright lights and a few salarymen looking for a good time on a Monday night. There were a bunch of tourists wandering around and a handful of JK girls offering their services.

“Normally, Tsukiyama alone isn’t enough to throw off the balance,” Yomo continued, not bothering to turn around to check if Hide was still on his trail. “But we underestimated him. He’s at least thrice as insane as we thought. Of course, we would never really have known if none of this had happened.” The comment made Hide wince. Without saying so, without even turning around to make a pointed look at him, Yomo had made a direct shot. Bulls-eye and right on point. If he hadn’t accepted Kaneki’s challenge back when he’d asked for a job at Anteiku, maybe—just maybe—things wouldn’t have had to be this way.

“I don’t regret it, though,” Hide said loudly. “Maybe I made a rich kid angry and maybe I made a mess of things and I definitely got more people involved than I should’ve… But I don’t regret it.”

“Yeah, I get you.”

That made Hide pause a bit. “You do?”

They weaved their way through the crowded streets, but the onslaught of people was subsiding. They were entering a darker, shabbier part of Shinjuku. Yomo made a sharp turn left into a side alley. Shadows flitted in the darkness, making the hairs on the back of Hide’s neck stand on end. There was a hiss and a clang and a garbage can shook. 

 _Just cats_ , Hide told himself. Just cats. 

They went on, sneaking through the darkness between buildings, passing the occasional street lamp—which was flickering on and off more often than not. Hide already forgot that they were still in the middle of a conversation when Yomo suddenly broke the silence.

“Not everyone has something they’d risk everything for,” he said so quietly, Hide almost didn’t hear him. “The people who don’t are people who have no idea what it’s like to love.”

“That—”

“That’s not something I thought I’d ever hear from you.”

Hide and Yomo stopped in their tracks. They’d reached another globe of light emanating from a lamp sticking out over a door. It didn’t look like much—or, it wouldn’t have looked like much if a certain familiar man hovered right in front of it.

“I brought him,” Yomo said flatly. 

“I was wondering if you would,” said Uta, grinning slightly. He caught Hide’s eye and his grin grew wider. “Let’s get you inside, shall we?”

 

“Inside” wasn’t at all what Hide was expecting. It was a fairly large salon of sorts. The number of chairs outnumbered the mirrors on the walls though. Hide looked around, wondering.

“I run this little tattoo parlour on my off days from Ghoul 20,” Uta said as if he’d read Hide’s mind. “Today is one of those days, but Renji made a special request for you. A favour for our beloved Kaneki.”

“The situation is escalating faster than we expected,” Yomo said, blunt as ever. Hide might have thought that hearing him say the word “love” a few minutes ago was more of a hallucination than anything else. “We’ve lost contact with more than three branches.”

Uta hummed. “Is Tsukiyama really so caught up in his little campaign that he doesn’t realise the repercussions of his actions?”

“Aogiri can’t make a move on him because he holds most of their public assets.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Hide said, holding his hands up. “Are you guys trying to say that Aogiri Tree, that fancy five-star restaurant that Anteiku makes bread and desserts for, is yakuza-owned?”

Uta smiled. “So is Pierrot Resto. And the Bin Brothers’ Grill. You’d be surprised how well-connected Shuu Tsukiyama is. And how he always turns those connections into advantages.”

“He runs a food empire. It makes sense that he’d start up restaurants. But if they’re all run by yakuza groups…” Hide crossed his arms. “He set them all up so that Anteiku would have solid backers. And for compensation, they get shares in the business.”

“And?”

“And…” Hide bit his tongue. He’d figured it out a long time ago, but it was more of a wild guess than anything. “They got to have Kaneki too.”

“It’s a symbiotic relationship that benefits everyone involved. Kaneki is able to vent his frustrations. The mobsters get their fill and their money. Tsukiyama gains control over all.” Uta leaned against one of the many black leather chairs in the room. “It was a sort of ordered chaos. Obviously, _you_ weren’t part of the plan. Now the order is dissolving into pure chaos. Police involvement is only fanning the flames.”

“Anteiku is being investigated,” Yomo said. “Privately, by Senior Police Officer Koutarou Amon.”

“Amon?” Hide repeated. “That guy lives just below Touka’s apartment. Is he dangerous?”

“Not that I’ve observed. He has personal motives for looking into Kaneki’s case, so it’s unlikely that he’ll get the entirety of the police involved. The main investigation, however, is making some headway, and even Amon can’t stop that.”

“Personal motives…” Uta looked almost thoughtful. “That’s a little romantic.”

“So what do you suggest then?” Hide asked, wanting to get straight to the point. 

“A distraction, mainly.”

“For who?”

“For everybody.”

“That’s pretty ambitious.”

“Not at all.” Uta cast him a knowing look. “Not when you know the right people to ask.”

 

They discussed the plan well into the night. Yomo and Uta seemed more than well-versed in what they were doing and Hide didn’t have to contribute much. He did want to, but he wasn’t exactly experienced in the field of yakuza wars or subterfuge or murder or whatever. Hell, he’d never even held a gun before Yomo pressed one into his hands at the end of the night and taught him how to flip the safety and aim properly down the barrel.

Hide didn’t protest to having the gun in a holster below his armpit. It jammed his ribs a little, but having a weapon in light of everything they’d talked about was more than a bit comforting. Besides, none of them thought he’d have to shoot anyone. If the plan went alright, then he wouldn’t even have to pull it out at all.

They were on the road back to the station before the last train was scheduled to arrive. It was just as quiet as the ride on the way to Uta’s parlour. This time, however, the quiet was laced with nerves like static electricity. It crackled and snapped in Hide’s mind and drew the outline of the Colt M1911 stuck like glue to his side.

An actual gun. A plain handgun, typical service pistol, but all the same, a gun. The very thing his father had threatened to kill him with. He lifted his jacket a little to take a peek, but it was too dark to see much. He was surprised by how much calmer he was than he expected himself to be. He _was_ freaking out a little bit, but mostly he wasn’t thinking about the gun, or his father, or Tsukiyama, or anything.

“ _You’re thinking about what?”_ Kaneki’s voice drifted through his mind. He smiled to himself as he watched the city lights fly by. 

 _Stealing my lines, huh, ‘Neki?_ he thought sleepily. 

“ _I’m thinking about you.”_

His eyelids felt heavy. His hands felt cold. He wished he could hold Kaneki’s hands in his, even for just 0.000001 of a second. Just that much was enough.

_“Just you.”_

He was asleep before he knew it.

* * *

Amon was a morning person. And a night owl. He had inexhaustible energy. He was disciplined and focused. He could finish a thousand reports without batting an eyelash. He—

Slender arms circled around his shoulders and the warm scent of coffee below his nose made his mind stop mid-mantra. He tilted his head up to see Akira’s wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous smile. He knew he was grinning stupidly without her having to point it out.

“When are you coming to bed?” she asked.

“When I finish up.” Amon took the mug from her hands but her arms stayed where they were—around him. “I just need another thirty minutes.”

“You said that three hours ago.”

“I’ll be fine. I really just need a few more sentences.” He warmed his fingers against the ceramic. The acrylic letters Akira had painted on it a year ago in that little workshop they’d attended together were faded but still readable. “Best Cop.” Short and straightforward. Not at all like the cheesy mug he’d made for her (“Queen of My Life and Heart”). Yet she loved it to bits. Literally. It was now around a month and a half since she’d shattered it when he’d proposed to her over breakfast.

She leaned into him, snuggling close enough for him to smell her shampoo. It was lavender again today. While he revelled in her warmth and sweet smell, he didn’t notice her eyes scanning the document on his laptop screen.

“Ken Kaneki,” she said aloud, making him start. “I’ve read that name quite a few times.”

Amon felt his jaw drop. “You have?”

She pulled away from him and folded her arms across her chest. “Yes. In some confidential cases that I might have read out of pure curiosity.” She pressed her lips together into a thin line. “I don’t like where this is going, Koutarou. From what I’ve read…”

“I want to ask you about that, actually.” He looked up at her, wanting to smack himself stupid for not thinking of this before. “Can you tell me exactly what happened with the ‘Jason’ case?”

* * *

Kaneki resisted the urge to pull the hood of Hide’s windbreaker over his head. With reading glasses and a cheap black wig on, he hoped he looked unrecognisable enough. Leaving was nerve-wracking, but he wasn’t going to be out for long anyway. Just an hour or two at the very most. He didn’t want Hide to worry, but he couldn’t just sit still either. His ankle was wrapped stiff inside his boot and it only throbbed slightly if he put a little too much weight on it.

He tried to keep his head up. If he ducked every time he made eye contact, it would raise suspicion. He kept his gait at a casual stroll. He didn’t have his phone anymore, so he couldn’t pretend to text someone to avoid parading his face around at full view. Then again, he’d read somewhere that the best place to hide a tree was in a forest. He just had to look like he had someplace to be and wasn’t in danger of getting kidnapped or anything. He sighed, his breath forming the faintest wisp of mist in the cold air. He glanced up at the clouds creeping across the blue sky. It was almost winter, huh.

He’d met Hide in April. It was October now. Most of that time, they hadn’t been talking. Instead, they’d been avoiding each other like the plague. His heart was still a tumultuous storm of emotions that twisted and turned into whatever shape at the slightest touch, the same way it always had been ever since the day they met in Ghoul 20 that one night. That one night he didn’t know if he regretted happening or not. 

“Oh yeah,” he mumbled to himself. Hide had talked about them watching a TA play at Kamii together last June. It seemed like so many lifetimes ago, and yet somehow time had gone by so fast, he could barely remember what he’d been doing since then. Except he could remember Hide clearly. Like he’d maxed the focus on Hide and left the rest of the world in a total blur. Everything about Hide from his smile to his golden hair and his tacky clothes and his lame attempts at humour and his clumsy driving. The sound of his barking laughter and the way his nose scrunched up every time he laughed. Lying next to him in the middle of a playground, listening to Hide talk about his family. Talking at length to Hide about how hard it was to knead gingerbread. Going shopping for baking ingredients. Passing by a bookstore together like it was the most natural thing in the world. Hugging and kissing like the world was going to fall from beneath their feet at any moment. Clinging to each other’s heat and making promises they couldn’t keep and choking on the words they wanted to say but couldn’t anymore.

They’d gone past a certain line of no return. No daisies and roses here now. No romance and fairy tales. Everything was just so painfully real that Kaneki wished he hadn’t gone and ruined it by forcing himself on Hide. He’d made innocence impossible and now both of them were caught in this maelstrom of confusion and resistance. They wanted to. But they couldn’t. They wished they could. But they shouldn’t.

His heart burned but he knew it was going to be impossible to stop the way he was feeling. All he could do was keep a stiff upper lip and walk on. All he could do was trust that he was walking in the right direction.

“Kaneki. You’ve come back.”

Yoshimura stood in front of Anteiku with a broom in hand and the kindest smile on his face. Kaneki didn’t even feel the tears sliding down his cheeks until he tried to speak and let out whimpering sobs instead. The old man stepped forward and placed his arm around Kaneki’s quivering shoulders. “We’ve missed you. Come inside and have some coffee now, won’t you?”

Kaneki managed a warbled, “Yes, please.” and let Yoshimura guide him into the shop.

 

Taking the steaming mug with his cold fingers and breathing in the scent of freshly brewed coffee was like seeing heaven smile upon him. He hadn’t had Yoshimura’s coffee in months. That translated to a thousand years in his body clock. He took a sip.

“It’s been way too long,” he sighed. His nose was still a little clogged but he felt much better now than he did a while ago. He looked up at Yoshimura, who was pouring himself a mug as well. “Thank you, Yoshimura.”

“Anything for you, my boy,” he said with the warmest smile. Kaneki looked around longingly at the décor, thinking of Hinami and Irimi and Koma and even Yomo… who Hide was supposed to be meeting again right now. The shop’s atmosphere seemed to almost welcome him home.

“How have you all been?” Kaneki asked as Yoshimura took his seat across him. “Have you found new employees?”

“Anteiku itself has been faring well. Not as good as it would have, however, if you had been here.”

He wilted. “I’m sorry I haven’t been doing my job.”

“Far from it,” Yoshimura said. “I was only trying to say that we’ve all missed you terribly.”

Kaneki felt the tears building up again. “I’ve missed you all too.” He bit the inside of his cheek. He knew now more than ever that he had to say what he had come to say. It would be a betrayal, yes, but it… wouldn’t be fair of him to keep talking as though nothing had changed.

“Kaneki, everything will be alright.”

He looked up, his nose aching. Tears stung his eyes. “No,” he said miserably. “I’m putting all of you in danger just by being here. I was selfish. I wanted to escape by any means possible. And I ended up using you and Hinami and Anteiku to do that. Now you’re all at risk. All because of me.”

“Everything will be alright,” Yoshimura repeated kindly. “No one was used. We were in dire need of help and so were you. We carried each other through our darknesses to arrive at this point. There is nothing for you to be sorry for. It is true that we are all in danger, but it is not because of you. You are not the enemy, Kaneki.”

“But Shuu can’t be… He can’t be the enemy…” Kaneki whispered. “I never wanted things to turn out this way. I never wanted to fight him. I just wanted to breathe.”

“You love him very much,” Yoshimura said. 

“He’s my family.”

“There are other ways to win a struggle without having to fight.” He met Kaneki’s eyes and smiled. “You need only have courage and everything will become clear.”

* * *

Two weeks after meeting Uta in Shinjuku, Hide was packing his bag next to Kaneki in the living room. His mother had already left ahead of them to catch her flight to Kyushu. There was a solemn silence between them as they placed their belongings into their bags. Two handguns and two serrated knives lay on the sofa. Neither of them dared to look at the weapons until they had packed everything else.

Kaneki was the first to take his gun and holster it.

“The safety,” Hide blurted.

“I checked, don’t worry.” Kaneki took the knife and held it up before his eyes. “This is it, huh.”

Hide nodded. “We’ll make it through. I swear. I won’t let anyone touch you.”

“I know.” Kaneki slid the knife into the leather scabbard of sorts strapped to the back of his pants. He turned to Hide. “I won’t let anyone touch you either.”

“Kaneki—” Hide began but Kaneki placed a finger on his lips.

“I have a lot of things to say, but I won’t say them yet. When we make it through, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Everything?”

“Absolutely everything.”

Hide grinned. “Can’t wait.” He holstered his gun, kept his knife, and shouldered his backpack. Then, silent as anything, they stole away from his house and slipped into the darkness outside.

* * *

“They’ve left the Nagachika residence, sir,” the young butler reported. “Their next course of action is as of yet undetermined.”

Tsukiyama reclined in his seat. He had been humming a little Tchaikovsky while waiting for Kaneki’s next move. Now that things had begun to be set into motion, he decided that Rachmaninov might be a more appropriate choice.

“They are armed, sir,” the butler added. “Will the plan proceed?”

Tsukiyama hummed to himself as he picked up his dagger and let it glide through his desk in smooth strokes. _Kaneki, mon amour,_ he thought, emotion rising in his chest like a tidal wave. _I will take you home soon._

“Sir?”

_And we will reside here in paradise for the rest of our days._

He guided the blade through the last stroke and flipped the knife, raised it overhead and slammed it hilt-deep into the wood.

 _As is appropriate of a true statement,_ he thought contentedly. He looked up at the man awaiting his orders.

“We proceed,” he said smilingly. “Regardless, Ken cannot escape me. He was a fool to think otherwise.”

“Yes, sir.” The butler bowed out of the room, leaving Tsukiyama to himself. He stood up to appraise the night view from his window.

The moon, half-covered by clouds, shone upon the words he carved upon his table.

 

_Moi seule peux t'aimer._

 

_I alone can love you._


	16. Losing You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jfc this was hard to write, but hEY MORE SUZUYA
> 
> thanks so much to everyone who's still waiting on this fic, if y'all still exist lmfao  
> i love you all

The plan was simple enough, if they stuck to it. Step one: get to Shinjuku unharmed. Step two: find Yomo at the rendezvous point. Step three: pick up the fake passports and papers. Step four: leave Tokyo on the next bullet train. Step five: board a plane to Kyushu. Step six: live happily ever after. The end.

Hide could only hope that things would go as smoothly and as neatly as they were listed in his head. There were so many ways that everything could go wrong. It was easy as catching the eye of a policeman in a particularly bad mood or being a tad too fidgety on the train. A single misstep could ruin it all. A single look away from the goal could kill. But Hide wanted to think positive. If he fell now, who would be there if Kaneki did too? Right now, tonight, all they had was each other. While the plan was in motion, nobody but the two of them were running hand in hand through the murky blackness of the hidden side of Tokyo. No one, not even Yoshimura or Touka would be able to swoop in to save them in the nick of time. Even Yomo and Uta would be busy securing the papers and the meeting place. 

They weaved in and out of crowds at a fast walk. Their fingers were interlaced, not merely out of affection but mostly out of a need to remember that they weren’t alone this night. Neither of them would be fighting alone. Hide took comfort in the tight grip of Kaneki’s hand and he made sure to return the gesture. They didn’t need to speak. They only needed to keep moving, to put one foot in front of the other, chins up, eyes forward, jaws set. More than ever did Hide realise the weight of actions compared to words.

Growing up, he’d been used to letting white lies fall from his mouth. He’d always told himself that his dad would never really hurt his family, would never really abandon them. He’d deluded himself into thinking that his mother would be alright and that he only needed a little more time until he graduated and fixed everything. Every day he’d woken up muttering to himself that it’d all be alright if he worked just a bit harder for just a bit longer. In the end, they’d all been words. Holding Kaneki’s hand so tightly—enough to imprint every crease and line and bump into his skin—was all he never thought he’d need. It wasn’t a pretty white lie. It was the cold, sweaty, scarred truth that they were on the run from near-certain death. Or at least a lifetime of separation which, to Hide, amounted to the same thing.

As their train eased into the station, they both stood, ignoring the curious few that glanced at their intertwined fingers every now and then, and stepped off and out of the train.

“You know where to go?” Kaneki asked.

Hide nodded. “I’ve got it all memorized.”

Kaneki gave him a meaningful look and he felt himself flushing at the earnest trust in those grey eyes. It pierced him to the core and warmed him up more than any thermal shirt ever could. Like this, he felt impenetrable. Like this, he was invincible.

 

Shinjuku at 10 PM was by no means quiet, but neither was it overly bustling. It wasn’t tourist season and most everyone had already closed up shop. They shared the streets with around a few dozen people who were all either way too serious or way too excited. The usual.

Hide led Kaneki by the hand, willing his palms not to sweat too much. He used his free hand to loosen up the collar of his sweatshirt. He felt a little bit stupid to be more nervous about them holding hands than by the gravity of the whole situation. But what was he supposed to do? Think about Tsukiyama and get so terrified that he wouldn’t be able to move an inch? It was suicide to even consider it. He decided to focus on the smallest detail. The way Kaneki’s pinky would twitch a little whenever they rounded a corner. His pulse beating out a steady tune beneath the pale white of his wrist. Some scars here and there from burns and cuts he’d gotten in the kitchen. Hide burned all of those things into his memory and emotion welled up inside him like a tidal wave. He wasn’t so sure if that emotion was bliss or fear, but either way, his heart was pounding into his chest so much that he could feel it to the very tips of his toes.

All at once, they’d come to the suburbs. The quieter part of the precinct. Drunken laughter echoed to them from somewhere down the street. Probably from one of the many small ramen places wedged between the apartment buildings. Hide slowed his pace, letting Kaneki catch up to his side. They walked along, surrounded by the cold October night silence (and the occasional drunkard’s laugh), and you could almost have called it a date. If they didn’t have a couple of guns tucked underneath their shirts and knives in their back pockets.

“Romantic,” Kaneki said suddenly, as if he'd read Hide's mind, “if it weren’t for the timing.”

Hide blushed and started staring a little too hard at the fallen leaves on the sidewalk. He laughed, and was glad it didn’t come off nervous or awkward. “Yeah. I would’ve bought us some ramen if we weren’t in a hurry.”

“Crepe would’ve been nice too.”

“And a movie,” Hide added.

“Yeah,” Kaneki nodded, a wistful gleam in his eye. He glanced at Hide. “After… we get to your mom… Can we do all that?”

Hide didn’t even need a full second to think about it. “Definitely,” he said, a bit too loudly. “After we get out of this. Together.”

Kaneki squeezed his hand and Hide didn’t know whether or not it was an unconscious gesture on his part. His expression grew somber and his smile faded. “I’m sorry for this, Hide,” he said quietly. “For dragging you into my mess. For endangering your family. For putting your life and your friends at risk.” His shoulders trembled. “You worked so hard to stay in school and have a normal life. And I took that away from you just because I loved seeing you smile at me and because I wanted to own that smile. I’m so— _ow!”_

Hide was pinching his cheeks, stretching them out wide. Kaneki tried to scowl, but Hide pinched harder.

 _“_ Wha ah oo doo ee?” Kaneki demanded, eyes squinting in pain.

“You were starting to say stupid stuff again, ‘Neki,” Hide said with a reprimanding tone to his voice. He gave Kaneki’s cheeks one last hard pinch before letting go and flashing him a sincere smile. “Honestly, you need to stop worrying for the both of us. My dad’s run off to who-knows-where and my mom’s safe and sound. I’m just someone who does the deliveries for your bakery. If anything, _you’re_ the one in most danger. Go and worry about yourself some, okay?” He paused and took Kaneki’s hands. They were oddly warm, despite the autumn chill. “I like you like this more, though.”

Kaneki huffed, but he couldn’t hide his own smile. “You’re contradicting yourself.”

“A little,” Hide shrugged. “But it really is nice to see you emote more.”

Rolling his eyes, Kaneki aimed a kick at his shin but he jumped away in time. 

“Let’s go already,” Hide laughed ahead of him. 

“To where?” Kaneki asked, both jokingly and not.

“Home, you sap,” Hide replied, just as the dark hands reached out seemingly from nowhere, toward him. “We’re gonna go ho—”

“ _HIDE!”_ Kaneki screamed his name but he’d already been ripped out of his grasp and pulled into the side street. Clenching his jaw, desperation filling his lungs, Kaneki pulled out the knife in his pocket and started on a sprint. Only to jump back as a black sedan screeched out the corner. One window rolled down, it slowed enough for Kaneki to see Hide’s face, his gagged mouth, his wide eyes and rough fingers clutching at his hair. He screamed Hide’s name again, only to be hit in the face with something the driver had pitched out of his own window at him.

Kaneki jumped to his feet and sprinted after the car as it picked up speed. His feet pounded against the pavement and his footsteps resounded along the dark street. The car was zipping away and its red taillights were burning themselves into his vision. He ran faster, until he was gasping for air. The cold breeze seared his throat. His lungs were on fire. He ran on. The car was barely the size of his hand now. 

“NO!” he shrieked, propelling himself forward. Throwing himself onto the intersection. Rubber skid on the asphalt and car horns blared. He found himself on his knees in the middle of the entanglement of cars. People shouted curses at him and a policeman ran up to tug him out of the way. He couldn’t hear any of them. He didn’t even know he was screaming until the policeman clapped a hand over his mouth.

It was all fading again. Turning into white noise.

He stared at his hands and the big fat tear drops that had been falling on them nonstop. 

What had he done?

 

 

The police let him go after he’d calmed down from his hysterical crying and screaming. He’d insisted that he was fine, that he’d just drunken a little too much. He’d said he was terribly sorry for the disturbance he’d caused. He’d pulled out some cash to pay the fine. After he left the station, he wandered aimlessly, with a constant burn in the pit of his stomach that tugged at his tear ducts every few minutes but he’d already cried himself dry.

Now he was lost in his guilt and grief. He felt like he’d just been torn up and set aflame. He was a burnt piece of paper, crumbling to ash on the ground. He’d been walking for what seemed like hours until he realised he was back at the corner where he’d lost Hide. Possibly for good.

He looked at the corner, at the post of the streetlamp that marked it, and felt anger boil up into the back of his throat. He let out an aggrieved half-yell half-groan and landed a kick at the post. Pain lanced up from his heel to his spine, but he didn’t care. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have let that happen? Why had he frozen up in fear like that? It should’ve been so easy to reach out and take Hide’s hands before he’d been pulled away like that. It should’ve been child’s play to jump into that open window, thrust his hand in and unlock the door. Maybe he would’ve broken an arm or two, but then Hide would’ve been with him right now, laughing—no, _yelling_ at him for what he’d done. But no, he’d been a coward. He’d watched it happen like a powerless idiot. Like he hadn’t changed a bit.

He slid to a crouch, hugging his knees, and sobbing without tears. So stupid. He was so stupid. A useless, good-for-nothing coward.

“Excuse me…”

He grit his teeth.

“Hey… Are you alright?”

Fuck. He was such a fucking idiot. So fucking _weak_.

“Excuse me.”

He hated himself. He couldn’t stand himself.

“I think you might have dropped this.”

He _hated_ himself.

“Sir?”

He whipped around. “Would you fucking leave me alone?” he snapped. “I’m _fine!”_

“Hold on just a darn second,” the irritating stranger continued. “Is that you Ken? Ken Kaneki?”

Kaneki stiffened. Who was this? “How did you know my—” He squinted through the dim light of the streetlamp. “Juuzou?”

Suzuya grinned. “The one and only! Hey, Ken, it’s been _ages_ and you wouldn’t _believe_ how hard I’ve been looking for you and… you don’t look so good.”

“I don’t…” Kaneki’s vision had been getting awry in the past few hours since he’d gotten out of the station. Now it was at its worst, with a darkness encroaching at the edges. Suzuya was a blotch of black and white in his eyes. He felt himself losing balance. “… feel so… good… either…”

“Ken? Ken!”

His fading vision turned black as he fell. In his mind, he never hit the floor. He just kept on falling down, down the inky blackness of the void that had been torn open inside him.

* * *

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Hide chirped as they led him down another flight of stairs. “I can’t see any of it, courtesy of the funny sack you’ve put on my head, but I’m proud of my sense of smell and judging from this musk, I’d say this is one hell of a dungeon!” A big, bony hand smacked the back of his head, making him pitch forward. His feet slipped off the edge of a stair and he tumbled down, his shoulders, his head, and his elbows banging painfully against what felt like cobblestone (how classical was _that?_ ). He hit the bottom of the steps with a grunt and a groan. He was already bruising all over when the kick hit him in the stomach. He cried out in pain and curled into himself.

“I _told_ you to shut the fuck up,” said the guy with a killer backhand. “Do you want to die before the master of the house gets to you?”

Hide spat blood. “Not really,” he said cheerily. “I just like talking.”

The man fisted his hair and pulled him up by its roots. It hurt like hell. “Keep walking.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

Hide hadn’t known how much a sack over his head could mess up his bearings. Guess there really was a first time for everything. He hummed a little tune as they walked. Somehow, he didn’t feel as terrified as he’d expected himself to be. In fact, he felt almost relieved. _At least it was me and not Kaneki_ , he kept thinking. This way was better. Tsukiyama would likely make Hide suffer, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter. All the pain he would ever feel was nothing compared to the thought of any of it happening to Kaneki. If only he could take on the weight of being Kaneki’s skin. If only Hide could be the one to feel pain instead of him. He hadn’t known just how much he’d wanted to do that until now.

Whatever Tsukiyama did to him, he would revel in the fact that Kaneki wouldn’t ever feel it. All he could hope for was that Kaneki wouldn’t be dumb enough to come here. He hoped and prayed for it. Enough to cry underneath the sack on his head.

A hand pulled roughly on the hood of his sweatshirt, choking and forcing him into a halt. Doors were opened with an almost ceremonial air. Warm air blew past Hide. The hand at his hood shoved him forward. He put one foot in front of the other as the doors closed behind him with heavy finality. The sack was tugged off his head and he was forced onto his knees.

When he lifted his head, Tsukiyama was there, lounging against the edge of a table, cigarette caught between his fingers. He smiled when Hide looked up at him.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Tsukiyama said, suppressing a self-satisfied smirk. “Little snipe.”

Hide swallowed a laugh. “No French nickname for me?”

“French is a beautiful thing.” Tsukiyama pushed off the desk and bent low, blowing a cloud of smoke into Hide’s face. “Beautiful things are reserved for beautiful people.”

“In… teresting opinion,” Hide coughed. 

Tsukiyama deigned to smile at him. It was a thin-lipped smile and he was already walking back toward the desk by the time Hide realised the full contempt behind it. But the smile was gone now. The hate in those eyes was real and terrifying enough to render Hide incapable of making a single smart-aleck follow-up. The time to pretend had passed.

“He won’t come,” Hide said quietly, and though his voice was firm he could feel his hands shaking. “He knows that he shouldn’t.”

“Of course he knows,” Tsukiyama laughed. His hands wandered the surface of the desk. He lifted what looked like a kitchen knife by its handle. He slowly drew a finger across the blunt edge as he spoke. “But there’s a difference between knowing what you shouldn’t do and believing in what you _can_ do.”

Hide watched him and his knife in silence. He refused to even consider the possibility that Kaneki would come running to him. If he did, his heart would start singing all sorts of romantic power ballads and he would start hoping for something that would never happen—no, that shouldn’t happen at all. Because if Kaneki came here, if he risked everything…

“As for you, however”—Hide flinched as Tsukiyama neared him with rope in his hands—“I want to make sure you stop believing in anything altogether.”

* * *

They’d been prepared for anything. Or so they thought. Kaneki felt like the most idiotic, most pathetic loser in existence. He couldn’t even look at his own hands without wrenching into the bucket Suzuya had brought in. Of _course_ Shuu had been watching them from the beginning! It wasn’t that he’d been figuring things out on his own, holed up in the mansion. He’d been on the ground, watching, from the very start.

Kaneki cursed himself for being so naive. He’d known how many people Shuu had under his thumb. He knew it, and yet he’d let this happen like a complete fool.

It took a while, maybe hours, maybe days, for him to lurch out of this sea of self-hatred and despair. Suzuya had waited all that time with a curious look on his face as he straddled a chair and rested his chin against its back. When he seemed to notice that Kaneki had finally snapped out of his episode, he stood up to make some coffee in the kitchenette. Kaneki listened to the sound of water boiling with a sense of exhaustion finally laying itself to rest inside him.

“You still take your coffee black, right?” Suzuya held out a mug to him.

“Yeah,” Kaneki accepted the proffered mug with a weary smile. “Thanks.”

Suzuya settled down beside him on the tiny couch, taking a sip of his own coffee. “Been a while, hasn’t it?” he said smilingly. “I don’t know if you heard me before you passed out in front of Seven-Eleven, but I said I’d been looking for you for ages.”

“Really?”

“Really!” Suzuya laughed. “You should see the look on your face.” He snickered some more and gulped down all of his mug’s contents. “How could I not look for you? I needed to know if you were still any good with knives.”

Kaneki couldn’t even suppress his smile at this. But the nostalgic amusement was fleeting and as much as he felt guilty for that, he couldn’t help the dark gloom bubbling in his stomach. He lowered his steaming mug to his lap. 

If Suzuya noticed his misery, he didn’t pry with unnecessary questions. Just like their orphanage days together, he avoided heavy topics with almost professional skill. Kaneki was grateful for that tact, but it always reminded him that Suzuya was never looking for anyone to close the distance. He hoped, quietly, that Suzuya would find someone, anyone, to do that.

“Oh, yeah! I totally forgot to tell you!” Suzuya jumped to his feet, hurried over to his kitchenette, and snatched up what looked like his wallet from the top of the short refrigerator. He flipped it open and held it up proudly for Kaneki to see. 

“You joined the MPD?” Kaneki’s eyes were wide and his eyebrows had shot skyward. 

“Criminal investigation bureau, Assistant Inspector, Juuzou Suzuya, at your service!” Suzuya grinned. “Whatcha think? Pretty neat, huh?”

“That’s amazing,” Kaneki said truthfully. “How long have you been?”

“About a year.”

“And you’re _already_ an assistant inspector?”

“And I still couldn’t find you,” Suzuya pouted, “until you randomly showed up in front of me last night.”

Kaneki balked. “You joined the MPD to find me?”

Suzuya hummed. “Not exa-a-a-actly. A few months after you were adopted, Rize ran off somewhere and a couple inspectors did a sweep of the orphanage. They asked us thousands of questions and, apparently, Rize had never really existed? No records, no nothing.”

“Wow.” Kaneki sipped at his coffee. It was strange hearing about Miss Rize after all this time. He wasn’t sure how to feel but later, he’d look back at this and realise that he didn’t really feel anything about it at all.

“Yeah,” Suzuya was nodding to himself with a thoughtful frown. “Anyhow, after the investigation turned up nothing, I caught the interest of one of the inspectors. His name is Shinohara. He kept visiting me after that and we played a lot of card games. I thought he was really weird at first, but I was having fun for the first time since you were gone. Half a year later, he adopted me and I pushed him to get me into the MPD because all his talk about justice and protecting the innocent kind of made me curious. Turns out”—he dangled his badge with a wistful smile—“I’m pretty good at this job. Even if I’m underage. Oh! But that’s a secret, though. Nobody knows but me, him, and now you.”

“So,” Kaneki said slowly, “you live here with him?”

“Yeah. He said he used to live in a much smaller apartment, but he saved up to get this one, so that we’d fit.” He twiddled his thumbs. “He’s a great, um, dad-person.”

“Hey, that’s amazing,” Kaneki said. “I’m happy for you.” He really was, even though his mind was preoccupied with other, more troubling things.

“So am I,” Suzuya said, beaming. Before he could say anything else, somebody knocked on the door. 

“Is that Shinohara?” asked Kaneki.

“Nope. It’s your friend—hmm, what was their name again?” Suzuya puzzled over this while he unlocked and opened the door. “I can’t really remember, but they were the first one in your message inbox, so…”

Kaneki felt his bad mood drop into an even worse one, if it were possible, as the door swung open and a murderous aura flooded the apartment. _I’m dead_ , he thought to himself.

“Ken Kaneki,” Touka snarled from the doorway. “You and I need to have a little talk. Mano a mano.” She kicked off her sneakers and stomped in toward him, seething. 

Kaneki felt himself shrinking away from her, shame and guilt and all sorts of unspeakable anxieties rising up and covering him entirely. “I’m sorry, Touka,” he said, trembling. “I’m so sorry.” He braced himself for the inevitable punch. Or kick. Whichever she felt he deserved more. But it didn’t come. Instead, she said, “You can be sorry later. After we get him back.”

He felt a small rush of relief. “Touka, I—”

“No, I don’t want to hear it,” she said. Her jaw was set and her shoulders shook. She was angry. So angry. But she knew it wouldn’t do anyone any good to take it out on him right now. Kaneki immediately felt ashamed again. She sighed through her nose and pulled a chair from the small dining area and sat on it. “I’ll hear you out after everything is over and Hide is safe. For now, all I want to talk about with you is our plan of action.”

Kaneki nodded.

“I’m going to kill Tsukiyama,” she said slowly, “if I find out that he so much as touched a hair on Hide’s head. You understand that, right?”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“Don’t you fucking dare and stop me.”

He met her gaze, steel for steel. He understood that she meant it. But that didn’t mean he would stand there and let it happen. 

“So,” Suzuya said abruptly, breaking the tense silence, “are we going to start planning or is the staring contest not going to end?”

Kaneki and Touka broke eye contact as suddenly as they’d started it. Kaneki didn’t need anyone to point it out for him. He knew that this plan would almost definitely get someone killed. He just hoped he’d have the strength to prevent it from happening when it did.


	17. Failing to Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey look it's almost over!! 
> 
> this chapter is a bit explicit?? there's a lot of hidewhump but if you've survived this far in, i don't think you'll cry that hard :'D  
> also im not making excuses, but suzuya faked his age, so if any1 is wondering why he can take shinohara's car for a spin, that's why
> 
>  
> 
> [pls consider commissioning me!](http://www.cast-iron-baku.tumblr.com/comm)

It could be worse.

This is what Hide kept telling himself as he discreetly struggled against the bonds tying his wrists behind a chair. The rope dug into his skin, strapped tighter than he could ever hope to simply slip out of. The act of struggling itself wasn’t really something he did to escape. It was more to tell himself that this was really happening, and that there was definitely no way for him to get free, unless aliens tore down the roof or something. 

Struggling made his bruised and cut body complain in earnest, but given that he still had all his fingers and limbs, it could most definitely have been much worse. Tsukiyama had kept him up for hours, trying to get information on Kaneki, and also enjoying every ounce of pain that he inflicted with both his thousand-dollar shoes and his kitchen knife. Afterwards, he had retired upstairs, leaving Hide to nurse his wounds.

From his spotty memory since being kept prisoner in this room, there was a sizable house above this underground dungeon of sorts. It didn’t feel as large as the mansion Kaneki had mentioned in his story, but it was definitely bigger than his own home. 

_Home_. The thought made his heart sink to his toes. Then he realized, not for the first time, that Kaneki _shouldn’t_ be trying to rescue him at all. He didn’t have any reason to, either. He had a one-way ticket out of Tokyo, to a place where he’d be accepted for sure, to a place where he could start over. If he came here, he risked getting caught by Tsukiyama or even the police.

_Don’t come, Kaneki,_ Hide thought, throwing his gaze up at the wooden ceiling. _Don’t you dare rescue me. Please._

The double doors swung open for the second time since he’d been tied to a chair made of thick oak. Tsukiyama came in with three long strides, a smile of lazy confidence on his face. He made a small gesture with his hands and two of his gruff-looking henchmen materialized on either side of him.

“Made yourself at home, boy?” Tsukiyama said, his eyes ice-cold as his words. He couldn’t care less for how much Hide felt “at home.”

“I like your interior decor,” Hide said, nodding at the room around him. “Very elegant, very classy. I’m more of an antlers-on-every-wall kind of guy myself. So that’s a three out of five rating you’re getting from me.”

Tsukiyama’s jaw twitched, and immediately one of the henchmen came forward and took a swing at Hide’s face. His vision went white as his head snapped to one side. He coughed, tasting blood where his cheek had torn against his teeth. He figured it would begin now, that long drawn-out torture that Tsukiyama’s eyes, dark with intention, had promised the moment the sack had been ripped from Hide’s head.

“You think you’ve won,” Tsukiyama sneered, “but it’s already over. I’ve made certain he knows where you are, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’d come and martyr himself for you.” He said this with pure disdain gnarling his voice and expression. It was a bit sad to watch. 

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Kaneki isn’t much of a saint,” Hide said. This earned him another blow to the head. His vision turned white for a second, before everything came back into focus. His mouth was filling with blood. He spat red at the floor between his feet. “I know,” he said slowly, as the sight of his own blood disoriented him a little. “I know you’re scared.”

It probably wasn’t the right thing to say, but he felt Tsukiyama stiffen. These were all things he’d seen before. He wasn’t a creepy people-watcher for nothing.

“I know that… Kaneki is the one thing you’re desperate not to lose. You don’t know what you’ll do or be if he’s gone. He’s the only reason why you haven’t given up on everything.”

“Enough.”

“You want him to stay, but you don’t know how to do that, because nothing you’ve done has kept anyone else from leaving. So you shower him with gifts, you keep him close, you make him pity you, you give him everything he thinks he wants because you don’t know any better than that.”

“I said _that’s enough_.”

This time, the man drove his fist into Hide’s abdomen, knocking the air out of his lungs. He doubled over, gasping. It was less painful than it was a suffocating feeling. He had a feeling that if he’d been hit harder, just a bit higher, he would’ve passed out completely.

“You know _nothing_ about us,” Tsukiyama growled. “Someone like you, who’s never loved anyone, you can _never_ understand.”

It was painful. More painful than any of the blows, any of the cuts and bruises. The truth was always the most painful. It was just a half-truth, or a three-fourths-truth, but it was impossible to deny how the two people Hide had always wanted to learn to love, were the two that’d basically denied him that right. His mother, at least, had gotten better after his father had left. He still struggled with the idea of fully placing his trust in her and mostly he was tiptoeing around her feelings. It was all a game of pretend.

But there was still that budding feeling that Hide knew was something he was just learning about. Something he had for both Touka and Kaneki alike.

“I _understand_ that you don’t have to chain the person you love to yourself just to keep them from leaving you.” Hide breathed in shakily, and willed himself not to think about Touka or Kaneki, or else he’d start imagining himself being able to return to them, and to say that he’d come home at last. “You can’t be scared. You have to trust them,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “Or else they’ll run away, and they’ll never come back.”

There was a whistle and crack as Tsukiyama’s hand slapped him, whipping his head to the side yet again. It didn’t help that he was wearing a gaudy ring on one of his fingers. Hide could already feel the welt forming just above his cheekbone. Tsukiyama stood over him, furious and heaving. Then he turned on his heel and left. His two henchmen exchanged confused glances but followed after him without complaint.

Hide slumped forward in his seat, knowing that this was far from over.

* * *

Suzuya had been able to pick up what the men had hurled at Kaneki’s face before they drove off with Hide in the backseat of their car. Inside, settled neatly—though knocked slightly askew by its less-than-cushiony landing—was an old bookmark. Written in Tsukiyama’s telltale script were the words, _Come back to me_. It was a blatant clue, and Kaneki was almost buttered up by the thought of it.

He remembered the old summer getaway with fondness. The smell of the woods, a gurgling stream nearby, smoke wafting off the grill as Tsukiyama’s father whipped up two slabs of barbecued meat, along with fish that the three kids had caught that morning. Small bugs jumping from leaf blade to leaf blade in the grass, tickling his ankles as he chased dragonflies and jumped into the pebbled stream, and laughed under the sun for the first time in a long time.

It’d happened when he and Tsukiyama and Kanae had gone exploring by themselves. He’d gotten too excited, ran ahead, and found an apricot tree bearing fruit in its branches. Clambering up high, he managed to reach one of the plump fruit and plucked it eagerly, raising it high overhead in triumph as Tsukiyama and Kanae watched with both fear and delight.

“Come back down, Ken!” called Shuu. “It’s too dangerous. You’ll fall.”

“Fine, spoilsport,” Kaneki teased, but the moment he looked down, he felt his head spin and, dropping the apricot, he grabbed the tree trunk with both arms. “I can’t!” he said, fear making his voice crack. “It’s too high. I can’t.” The danger of it made him feel weak, and though he hated it, he couldn’t deny how it paralyzed him.

“I’m calling Mama!” Kanae shouted before darting back the way they’d come.

Shuu stayed. “Wait there.” He grabbed hold of a branch, testing it with his weight. It bend and made a disconcerting splintering noise. “Ken,” he said, “I can’t come up. You have to come down to me.”

“No,” Kaneki said, shaking his head. “I can’t.”

“You can,” Shuu said, reaching up with both arms. “Come down, Ken. Come back to me.”

It’d taken a bit more coaxing than that to get Kaneki to shimmy down the tree at last. Tsukiyama’s parents had given them the earful of a lifetime but they’d exchanged glances and grinned. They had overcome it together, and that was enough for them. Things had been simpler then. It’d been a bit easier to smile and no more than a few seconds to laugh. It hadn’t been perfect and it’d been hard to learn to open up again, but somehow, he had learned to, for just a moment.

He had changed since then, then changed again and again until he thought he was no longer recognizable from the little boy his father had held up in the air singing songs from old children’s movies like Howl’s Moving Castle. Now he sat shotgun next to Suzuya behind the wheel, looking out at a long road lit by streetlamp after streetlamp. He wondered if he had changed even more in the time since he’d met Hide, or if maybe, possibly, he was steadily going back to the person he used to be, or might’ve been. It made him wonder if meeting someone was possibly therapeutic, or a replacement for pills or maniacal, self-destructive habits.

He laughed a little, just a breath.

“What’s so funny?” Touka said from the backseat, leaning forward so her head popped up in between Suzuya and Kaneki, who eyed her and felt an almost emotional surge of protectiveness for someone he didn’t have the right to protect at all.

“People aren’t medicine,” he said. “People are just… people. We can’t heal each other. We can only help each other heal themselves.” He paused. “Just… something I realized.”

Touka nodded slowly. “He realized that too. With you.”

_I won’t deny the mistakes you made_ , Hide had said. _I’m not in the position to forgive you either._

“It’s probably stupid to feel proud that he learned something from meeting someone like me,” Kaneki mused aloud.

“It is,” Touka agreed.

He frowned. She laughed. It was a nice sound to listen to. For a moment, there was a comfortable space between them, built from a seedling of trust, the quiet sound of jazz from Suzuya’s—no, Shinohara’s car radio, and the one person who should’ve been there, but wasn’t.

“I’m sorry we kept trying to kick you out of our plans,” Kaneki said finally, daring to break that glass wall. “He would never forgive himself if anything happened to you or Ayato or…” He realized belatedly that he had never been introduced to that girl Touka had been with at the train before. It felt like such a long time ago.

“He’s a good guy,” Touka said. “A great guy. But he can never get it into his head that maybe I might want to protect him too. He keeps forgetting that he isn’t alone anymore. Smart, but a total blockhead when it comes to relationships with anyone. It’s why we never really worked out together.”

“Yeah, he can be really… wait, what?” Kaneki sat straight up, the seatbelt stretching and the top of his head brushing against the roof of the car.He tried to ignore how Suzuya was snickering a little under his breath as he drove. “You two? You were? Really? I thought…?”

“ _Were_. For about a year. Like I said, it didn’t work out. He kept thinking love was a one-way kind of thing. The more I tried to get in, the more he pushed me out. He thought he was protecting me. He wasn’t.” She seemed to be looking somewhere far away as Kaneki watched the shadows on her face that vanished every now and again with the lamplights they passed. “It sounds like bullshit but I… I kind of _envied_ the way he looked at you—and not in _that way_ —I mean, I’d never seen him bend over backwards and play all his cards the moment he met somebody. I’ll kill you if you tell him any of this,” she added in a harsh whisper.

“I won’t,” he said, “but I think he’ll figure it out sooner or later, if he hasn’t already.”

She groaned, falling backward into her seat. “Sometimes it pisses me the hell off that my best friend-slash-your boyfriend isn’t a dumb fuck.”

_He’s not my boyfriend_ , Kaneki didn’t say. He just smiled, though it was a grim expression more than anything else. The mood shifted almost imperceptibly. It was going to take little over a couple of hours to get to the Tsukiyama family’s summer getaway. Two hours in which Hide would be at Tsukiyama’s mercy. 

“Touka,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen the moment we get there, but I want you to promise me something. You too, Suzuya. Both of you.”

“And what’s that, Ken?” Suzuya asked, glancing over at him for a second or two.

“Promise me that no matter what Shuu says, no matter what he does to me, and no matter what Hide says…” Kaneki swallowed. It was suddenly so hard to get the words out, even though he’d always known that this was inevitable. There was no escaping, no redemption from his past. For somebody like him, there was no such thing as a happy ending. “Get Hide and get out of there. Protect him. And… don’t come back.”

It felt like the car had gotten smaller, the space constricting, and it was near impossible to breathe. But it was the right thing to do, he knew. Neither Touka nor Suzuya… and especially not Hide… None of them had anything to do with this, and yet they’d been forcibly dragged into the thick of it.

“Is that all?” Touka said in a huff. “I was planning on doing that shit from the start. Get your head out of the damn clouds.”

Kaneki laughed quietly. “Yes, sorry, I’ll try to be a bit more discerning next time.” There wouldn’t be a next time, hopefully.

“I’m not sure about leaving you behind,” Suzuya said lightly, “though if you insist, I’ll trust you on it.”

“Thanks,” Kaneki said, nodding.

The road ahead was dark and he had a bit of an idea of what lay in store for him. But no matter what it was, he would do everything in his power to keep Hide out of it. He’d been caught up long and far enough.

It was time to end things.

* * *

Hide came to with something of a pounding headache and the urge to throw up everything he’d eaten since last Christmas. He couldn’t be sure what Tsukiyama’s men had drugged him with but clearly, it hadn’t been tested as safe for human consumption. He doubled over and vomited all over the floor. It smelled like his last dinner with Kaneki, except more vomit-like and disgusting rather than heartwarming.

It took him a full minute to re-orient himself and remember that he’d been stripped of his clothes and been left to the bulky henchmen to do as they liked. They’d apparently been great fans of his mouth and his ass. It felt raw and twitched inside every now and again, and Hide felt like throwing up again when he felt an alien warmth in his gut. They’d been quite liberal with their come, it felt. His jaw felt sore too, but at least the vomit had washed out the taste of another man’s dick.

He breathed hard, screwing his eyes shut and biting down hard on his tongue. He couldn’t cry. It wasn’t the time for that. His head was still throbbing as he hoped and prayed that he wasn’t going to come down with a disease any time soon. He pushed himself up with his shoulder, his hands lashed behind his back. His hair was matted to his skull from when they’d dunked his head in a bucket of water. He tested his other limbs. Nothing broken, at least. Small victories.

The worst thing about getting fucked to unconsciousness was that it disrupted his train of thought. He’d been trying to formulate a plan of escape before the men had come in and torn off his clothes and forced him to bend over and act like a little bitch. Now he was back to square one and trying to wrap his mind around how things were going to work from now on.

Tsukiyama was clearly no longer in the mood to be coming here himself. He was more than willing to let his men take turns with the new public toilet. It would be simple matter to turn the men on each other and slip away, but the drug running through his veins kept him from making the simplest of movements without being overcome with nausea. The idea of seducing one of the men also came to mind, but judging from the way they followed Tsukiyama almost instinctively, Hide highly doubted the allure of his ass compared to a weighty sense of duty.

_Think_ , he thought almost desperately. _Think_ , _Hideyoshi, you damn piece of shit. If you don’t get out of here fast, Kaneki’ll break down the door and walk right into a trap._

Kaneki’s safety relied on Hide’s ability to force away the aches and pains and bouts of vertigo, and come up with a plan of action. He couldn’t give up here. He couldn’t—

He bent over and retched, but nothing would come out. He tasted salt on his lips and realized he was crying, even though he’d done his best not to. He slumped forward against the tiled floor and let the tears slip down and fall, one after another. He cried, quietly, for an indeterminate amount of time, then when the tears stopped, finally, he lay there, quite still, and then got up slowly. He breathed in, then out. Footsteps outside the door. He braced himself.

“ _He—_!” The gruff voice was cut off abruptly with a dull crack and thud. The doors swung open.

“Hide!” Kaneki cried breathlessly.

“Oh my god.” Touka was untying the ropes, a furious light in her eyes. “ _Who did this to you?_ ”

He blinked slowly. “Tou… ka?” he croaked.

“Who did this,” she hissed. “I’ll skin them alive, I swear it. I’ll make them—” She paused, fuming, though her eyes were glistening with something other than anger now. “You idiot,” she said softly, pulling him into a tight, shaking embrace. “You stupid, stupid idiot. I _told_ you I’d be able to help. But you wouldn’t fucking _listen_.”

Hide felt his breath escape him and he returned Touka’s embrace. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want you to get hurt… Better me than y—”

In an instant Touka had shoved away from him and was glaring daggers at him. “ _Don’t_ fucking say that bullshit. Don’t. I never want to hear it.”

“Okay,” he said, smiling weakly. “I won’t.”

“I, um, I took the guard’s clothes.” Kaneki was standing over him, with a bundle of clothes in his outstretched hand. He wasn’t looking at Hide and his ears were fast turning red. The sight of it and the flood of relief Hide felt at seeing him unscathed, was nearly enough to let him forget the gravity of the situation.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Hide said. “He won’t let you leave.”

Kaneki looked at him and his expression was unreadable, as always. “Well I’m here now and it’s too late to think about that,” he said. “I’m the only one who knows a way in and out through the back.”

Hide was shaking his head. “No. No, you can’t be here. And _you,_ ” he said, shooting a look at Touka. “You shouldn’t be here, either. Get out before Tsukiyama comes back and kills you.”

Anger rolled off of her in waves. She opened her mouth to give him the tongue-lashing of a century, but Kaneki was sitting on his heels now and dropping the clothes on Hide’s lap. “We don’t have time for you to freak out about the small stuff,” he said. “Put these on and we can go before Suzuya’s caught.”

“Suzuya? Your friend from…?”

“Yeah. We bumped into each other a little while ago.”

“Escape now, talk later,” Touka cut in sharply, prompting Hide to pull on the long-sleeved tee and a pair of dirty jeans. The guy’s shoes were too loose to wear, and he decided against walking around in them. At this point, he knew better than to argue against _both_ of them, and he wanted to get the hell out of here pretty badly himself.

Kaneki led them out of the room and they slunk down the hallway, quiet as could be. Hide had his arm around Touka’s shoulders and he leaned against her heavily whenever he felt the nausea overpower his sanity for a brief moment. They made slow progress through the underground hallways, moving then pausing, moving then pausing, so that Hide didn’t black out from the overwhelmingly dizzying feeling. Touka was seething, muttering how she’d eviscerate Tsukiyama if she saw him and that she’d almost feel lucky if they _did_ see him.

As it turned out, she was in luck.

Because just as they crested the winding staircase and stepped out onto the ground floor of the summer villa, he stood there, his expression vacant. Behind him, a young man—probably Suzuya—had his arms twisted behind his back by a couple more burly and forgettable henchmen.

“ _Mon amor_ ,” he said, lips curling into a self-satisfied smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ve come back to me indeed.”

Kaneki squared his shoulders and spoke coolly. “I have,” he said and Hide knew instantly that this was going exactly how Tsukiyama—and maybe even Kaneki—had planned. He should’ve known. He should’ve fought harder, should’ve forced Kaneki and Touka out the moment they’d come in. He was filled with regret.

“Kaneki, no,” he said, but his voice sounded weak. “Don’t.”

Kaneki ignored him. “You have me now, and you’ve punished him enough,” he said.

“ _Don’t do this._ ”

“Let them go,” he continued, his words having a grave air of finality, “and I’ll stay.”

“Wise decision,” Tsukiyama said, signaling for the men to release Suzuya, who walked over to Kaneki and took his hand.

“I’m sorry,” Suzuya said smilingly. “I took a bit longer than expected”—he moved with inhuman speed, sliding a switchblade out of one sleeve and a pocketknife from the other, and suddenly both henchmen were down, bleeding from blades lodged deep in their thighs—“and I hope you don’t mind.”

Kaneki raised an eyebrow. “Don’t mind what?”

“I called for a bit of back-up.”

Tsukiyama seemed to snap out his daze when the faint sounds of police sirens pierced through the night. His eyes flashed murderously.

“ _You traitor_ ,” he ground out at Kaneki.

“I’m sorry, Shuu,” he said quietly. “But you and I… we have to pay for the things we’ve done. It’s only right.”

“ _You lied to me_ ,” Tsukiyama shrieked. A dozen henchmen, clearly well-trained and well-fed members of the yakuza, came bursting into the room. There was fear in their eyes. They’d all heard the sirens.

“ _Kill them all!_ ” Tsukiyama spat. He didn’t care about the police. His eyes were trained on Kaneki as he pulled a knife from his pocket and lunged for Kaneki’s throat.


End file.
